Scientific research, firm heterogeneity, and foreign R&D locations of multinational firms
We thank Bart Thijs and Wolfgang Glanzel for assistance in the analysis of ISI publication data at the Centre for R&D Monitoring (ECOOM) of the KU Leuven, and Shanqing Du for research assistance. We acknowledge financial support from EU FP7 grant number SSH7-CT-2008-217436. We are grateful to Daniel Spulber; two anonymous reviewers; Lee Fleming; Jan van Hove; Reinhilde Veugelers; Bart Van Looy; Leo Sleuwaegen; and participants at the EU Conference on Corporate R&D (Seville, October 2007), the ESF/COST workshop in Leuven (October 2007), the Global Innovation Management workshop (Duisburg, February 2008), the 2008 AIB Conference (Milan, June 2008), the 2008 SMS Conference (Köln, October 2008), the INIR Workshop on the Global Laboratory (Leuven, November 2008), the CEPR SCIFI-GLOW Workshop (Madrid, July 2009), and workshops at Hitotsubashi University (July 2009), RIETI (August 2009), and Copenhagen Business School (2011) for comments on earlier drafts.
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Abstract
We examine the influence of host countries’ scientific research strengths on global R&D location choices by multinational firms. In an analysis of 277 new R&D activities identified for 175 firms in 40 host countries and 30 technology fields, we find that the strength of relevant university research positively affects the likelihood that host countries attract foreign R&D. When allowing for firm heterogeneity, university scientific research appears only a significant factor for firms with a strong science orientation in their R&D activities. Host countries’ corporate scientific research has no systematic influence on R&D location choices. Empirical results are replicated in an analysis at the regional level covering regions in Europe, the United States, and Japan.
