We use data from the Italian manufacturing industry to document a positive relation- ship between delegation of decisions within organizations and involvement in research and development. This positive correlation is robust to controlling for the determi- nants of R&D within firms such as the level of human capital, capital intensity, sec- toral and regional effects and to using different measures of R&D. We also investigate the determinants of delegation in our sample. We find a positive correlation between ownership concentration and delegation, which goes against the findings of Shleifer and Vishny (1986). We also find that variables found as important determinants of delegation in French manufacturing by Acemoglu, Aghion, Lelarge, Van Reenen and Zilibotti (2007) do not appear important in our sample, and some even exhibit qualita- tively opposite effect. These disparities can perhaps be explained by differences in the studied samples and observed variables, and call for further studies of cross-country differences.
