DOES THE EFFECT OF PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR R&D DEPEND ON THE DEGREE OF APPROPRIABILITY? <link rid="fn24">-super-* </link>

We explore the interaction between public support for R&D and appropriability using a dataset constructed from the Spanish Community Innovation Survey, for the period 2000-2005. We find that public support policy is less able to stimulate privately financed internal R&D in firms where appropriability mechanisms are more effective. On average, the effect of public support for R&D is three times larger for those firms reporting a level of appropriability below the median vis-à-vis those firms for which appropriability is above the median level. Furthermore, for supported firms with the highest degree of appropriability, crowding out cannot be ruled out. Copyright 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. and the Editorial Board of The Journal of Industrial Economics.