The Impact of Corporate Governance Practices on R&D Intensities of Firms : An Econometric Study on French Largest Companies

The paper considers the impact of multiple shareholder-oriented governance practices on R&D decisions. Based on a sample of 5,713 firms belonging to 110 large French listed business groups, our results substantiate the idea that shareholder-oriented governance practices and a lower position in a control pyramid are better for R&D investment. The introduction of any additional shareholder oriented practice is found to result in more R&D. We show however that this Anglo-Americanization of the French corporate governance system is only partial. We provide evidence of the co-existence of an old French system of corporate governance with a hybrid model of corporate governance. The lack of concrete results on complementarity among shareholder oriented governance practices casts doubt on the stability of this hybrid model in the French context