The economics of subsidies for R&D: Implications for reform of EU state aid rules

The primary aim of the reform of EU rules on research, development and innovation for the period 2014–20 is to ensure that aid stimulates more research and that it is kept to the minimum necessary. This paper develops a simple model that identifies a number of problems in the public funding of private research and demonstrates that the determination of the optimum subsidy for research is a complex task. The results suggest that research subsidies should be allocated in a way that reduces the amount of subsidy per recipient firm and ensures that the subsidies go to more efficient firms. Copyright ZBW and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013