"To R&D or not to R&D, that is the Question": A Firm Level Study of Employment Growth in the Irish Manufacturing Sector, 1986-95

This paper uses micro-data to examine the relationship between R&D activity and employment growth. The R&D and employment data used are drawn from a survey of the Irish manufacturing sector undertaken by Forfás, the policy and advisory board for industrial development in Ireland. By international standards, Ireland has an exceptionally high level of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the paper explores differences in the R&D/growth relationships between foreign and indigenous firms, exploring the incidence and scale of R&D activity. Our preliminary findings of superior net employment creation for R&D-active firms, combined with the superior performance of the high tech sector, are bench marked against a number of similar studies.