Previous literature provided evidence on financing constraints for investment in R&D activities due to capital market imperfections and special features of R&D investments. Moreover, it has been shown that a shift in capital structure towards more debt, results in a reduction of R&D investments....

This paper presents microeconometric evidence on financing con-traints for research and development activities in German small and medium?sized firms (SME). Special attention is paid to the role of public R&D subsidies. For this purpose SME in Western and East-ern Germany are compared because...