How Research Policy Changes Can Affect the Organization and Productivity of Public Research Institutes : An Analysis within the Italian National System of Innovation

Nowadays the governments of some countries reorganize public research laboratories to increase their efficiency and scientific knowledge transfer, more and more necessary to the competitiveness of firms and national economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between organizational changes and productivity in public research institutions within the Italian national system of innovation, during the period 1999-2003, which is characterized by a new research policy based on mergers and consolidation among research units. The new policy is generating lower research productivity and scale diseconomies in laboratories, due to the bureaucratization of these large new bodies. The results also show that institutes of small size are more productive than large-sized labs. The comparative analysis provides policy makers with useful nformation concerning the behavior of these bodies