Measuring Intersectoral Knowledge Spillovers: an Application of Sensitivity Analysis to Italy

R&D spillovers are unanimously considered as one of the main driving forces of technical change, innovation and economic growth. This paper aims at measuring inter-industrial R&D spillovers, as a useful information for policy-makers. We apply an “uncertainty-sensitivity analysis” to the Italian input-output table of intermediate goods split into 31 economic sectors for the year 2000. The value added of using this methodology is the opportunity of distinguishing (separately) between spillover effects induced by productive linkages (the Leontiev forward multipliers) and those activated by R&D investments, capturing also the uncertain and non-linear nature of the relations between spillovers and factors affecting them.