Abstract
Set within the expenditure context of the global financial crisis (GFC), this paper explores how the research and development (RD) expenditures of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies affect their technical efficiency levels. A balanced panel of 149 US firms operating in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector (covering the period 2000?2017) was employed. Output-oriented partial frontier measures were used to measure the effect of RD expenditure on firms? technical efficiency levels. Findings suggest that company efficiency is an important contributor on the effects of RD on productivity and efficiency. Result suggests that a relationship between technical efficiency and RD expenditure exhibits a ?U?-shape relationship. The estimated efficiency of biotechnology firms is higher compared to pharmaceutical firms driven by their higher RD expenditure levels. We demonstrate that RD expenditures are essential for firm efficiency. We posit that a threshold level for achieving optimal efficiency levels exist, which can be used to inform managerial and policy-making decisions at the firm level.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 6170-6184 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | International Journal of Production Research |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue number | 20 |
| Early online date | 30 Sept 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsWe would like the thank Alexandre Dolgui (Editor), the Associate Editor and the anonymous reviewers of the journal for their useful comments made to our manuscript. Any remaining errors are solely the author’s responsibility.
Keywords
- RD efficiency
- technology
- innovation
- data envelopment analysis
- US biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms
- R&D efficiency
- 2 FACES
- MANAGEMENT
- KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS
- PERFORMANCE
- FIRMS
- NONPARAMETRIC FRONTIER MODELS
- EXPENDITURES
- RADICAL INNOVATION
- PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH
