Measuring the Impact of Direct and Indirect R&D on the Productivity Growth of Industries: Using the Yale Technology Concordance

This paper investigates the impact of direct and indirect R&D on the productivity growth of 30 French industries during the period 1978-92. The main aim of this paper is to assess the appropriateness of the Yale Technology Concordance (YTC) as a proxy for indirect R&D flows. We compare the effect on productivity growth of the Yale proxy with the traditional proxy based on goods input-output flows, and assess their suitability for different groups of industries. Results indicate that the indirect YTC proxy performs slightly better than the traditional proxy, as a result of superior performance in the high-tech and service sectors in particular.