The impact of research joint ventures on firm performance: an empirical assessment

Research and Development Joint Ventures are based on cooperative agreements where firms share the costs and results of a particular research project. While theoretical analysis of research joint ventures on profits, R&D intensity, output and prices is more developed in the existing literature, few empirical investigations exist. This paper gives a first insight into the impact of research joint ventures on firms' profit margins. In addition, it investigates the degree to which different firm variables influence participation in research joint ventures (RJVs). For this purpose, 314 US research joint ventures registered from 1985 to 1992 are considered in the study. 2,923 unique cooperating firms and 13,186 noncooperating firms represent the basic sample. A descriptive comparison of cooperating and noncooperating firms finds that cooperating firms achieve a lower profit margin. In addition to this, larger firms are more likely to form RJV’s on average. Regression analyses show that two offsetting effects influence the profit margin and that the R&D investments of cooperating firms have a higher impact on profits. Beyond that, the firm size has a positive and significant influence on RJV participation.