Research and Development internal and external and impacts on innovation and productivity

Abstract

Encouraging innovation and productivity in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean is a central policy issue for these economies. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of investment in internal and external R&D -postulated by many as motors of technological change and growth- on the process of innovation and labor productivity for a sample of formal manufacturing companies of the period 2009-2014 of a middleincome economy, Peru, of the region. The analysis of this impact is based on the estimation of a CDM model (acronym due to Crepón, Duguet, and Mairesse, 2008) of thirteen equations, which suggests that companies in Peru are not taking advantage of R&D activities (internal and external) and continue to depend on physical and human capital, and not on the results of innovation, to increase labor productivity. These results point to a greater diffusion of the programs that promote said investments.