Using new evidence on the digitalisation activities of firms in the European Union and the United States, we document a trend towards digital polarisation based on firms' use of the latest digital technologies and their plans for future investment in digitalisation. A substantial share of firms...

The fast development of vaccines is an essential part of the long-term solution to COVID-19, but vaccine development has high costs and carries the risk of high failure rates.There are currently too few promising projects in the clinical trial pipeline to guarantee at least one vaccine soon....

The necessity to meet climate and environmental targets, while at the same time ensuring economic and social sustainability,requires a transformation that will generate enough benefits to compensate the losers.

Research and development is seen as a key contributor to growth because it generates knowledge, leading to new or improved products through product innovation, and makes firms more efficient at producing goods through process innovation. Firm- level studies generally find evidence of strong...

The 2022 United States Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a significant and welcome climate law. It also includes trade-distortive subsidies, including local-content requirements prohibited under World Trade Organisation rules - the first time the US has done this and a blow to the international...

In March 2023, the European Commission published a legislative proposal for an EU response to the US Inflation Reduction Act: the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA). It is an unconvincing policy proposal, both for what is in it and for what is not in it. The proposal has five problematic aspects....

Using new and unique survey evidence on digitalisation activities and investment in climate change of non-financial firms in the EU and the US, this article documents the trend towards twin digital and green investment in the corporate landscape after the COVID-19 pandemic. We use information...

This paper analyzes M&A patterns of R&D projects in the antidiabetics industry. For this purpose, we construct a database with all corporate individual antidiabetics R&D projects over the period 1997 - 2017, and add detailed information on firms' technology dimension using patent information,...

This study investigates the effects of an R&D subsidy scheme on participating firms' net R&D investment. Making use of a specific policy design in Belgium that explicitly distinguishes between research and development grants, we estimate direct and cross-scheme effects on research versus...

This study investigates the effects of an R&D subsidy scheme on participating firms' net R&D investment. Making use of a specific policy design in Belgium that explicitly distinguishes between research and development grants, we estimate direct and cross-scheme effects on research versus...