Research Investment, Innovation and Productivity: An Econometric Analysis at the Firm Level

This paper studies the link between productivity, innovation and research and development investments at the firm level. We introduce three new features: (i) A structural model that explains productivity by innovation output, and innovation output by research and development investments; (ii) New data on French manufacturing, including the number of European patent applications, innovation sales as well as firm-level demand pull and technology push indicators; (iii) An econometric method which does not seem to have been used previously in this literature.