The Econometric Evaluation of the Impact of R&D Incentive on Technological Outcomes

R&D지원정책이 기술성과에 미치는 영향분석

Among numerous policy influencers' and researchers' advices and policy suggestions, there is little opposition to the proposition that technology is essential to the economic development. The role of technology has never been more emphasized than today in Korea as in any other countries. The effects of the government's innovation policy on corporate R&D activities and more broadly the economic welfare of a whole nation are widely recognized with intuitional and empirical evidence. That is, various R&D incentives reduce the marginal cost of a firm's R&D efforts, inducing as much increase of its R&D investment to result in a better chance to acquire target technology. This paper examines the impact of R&D incentives on the technological outcomes by analyzing individual firms' investment behaviors subject to the government's R&D incentive policies. An econometric model of technological outcomes is estimated on a project level with cross-sectional data. "Probit model" is employed for estimations. Special attention was given to the effectiveness of R&D programs by estimating policy impact by types of investment. The data were collected from 928 different R&D projects completed between 1987 and 1993. With the single equation approach, we were able to find that the structure of investment is a far more significant factor in technological outcomes than the total amount of investment. The analysis also shows that the two types of firms' matching investment, in-kind and cash, do not bear a complementary, but a substitutive relations to each other. It also reconfirms the proposition that R&D incentives increase firm's financial investment. Despite many supportive studies emphasizing the cooperation between innovation performers, it is also found that the larger the number of institutions involved in a project, the less likely it leads to a technological success, And meeting the proposed deadlines without postponing is estimated to be a good barometer to predict the outcome of an R&D project. Also the probabilities of success for major variables are represented for policy implications, after calculating marginal effects.

기술정책은 기술획득을 위한 민간투자가 적정수준 이하로 과소투자되는 성향을 보전하는 중요한 정책수단이다. 그러나 기술정책과 관련된 정부정책에 대한 정량적 평가는 아직도 초보적 수준에 머물러 있다. 본 연구는 과제수준에서 기술개발지원제도의 성과를 계량경제학적 모형(Probit)을 이용하여 분석하고 있다. 정부의 지원, 민간부문의 대응 투자(현금과 현물), 기술개발과제 수행형태, 수행주체간의 역할 등이 기술적 성과에 미치는 영향을 가설을 검증하는 형태로 살펴보았다. 총투자규모 보다는 투자의 구성 및 내용이 중요하고, 기업의 대응투자, 특히 현금투자의 정도가 기술적 성과에 크게 영향을 미치며, 기업의 현금투자와 현물투자는 대체재 관계라는 정책적 시사점이 높은 결과들이 도출되었다. 이러한 결과들은 향후 추가적인 연구와 더불어 새로운 국가기술 개발지원제도의 기획은 물론 그 효율성 평가에도 많은 도움과 함께 시사점을 줄 것으로 기대된다.