How do firm characteristics affect behavioural additionalities of public R&D subsidies? Evidence for the Austrian transport sector

Interest of STI policies to influence the innovation behaviour of firms <br/>has been increased considerably. This gives rise to the notion of behavioural <br/>additionality, broadening traditional evaluation concepts of input and output <br/>additionality. Though there is empirical work measuring behavioural <br/>additionalities, we know little about what role distinct firm characteristics play <br/>for their occurrence. The objective is to estimate how distinct firm <br/>characteristics influence the realisation of behavioural additionalities. We use <br/>survey data on 155 firms, considering the behavioural additionalities stimulated <br/>by the Austrian R&D funding scheme in the field of intelligent transport <br/>systems in 2006. We focus on three different forms of behavioural additionality <br/>project additionality, scale additionality and cooperation additionality and <br/>employ binary regression models to address this question. Results indicate that <br/>R&D related firm characteristics significantly affect the realisation of <br/>behavioural additionality. Firms with a high level of R&D resources are less <br/>likely to substantiate behavioural additionalities, while small, young and <br/>technologically specialised firms more likely realise behavioural additionalities. <br/>From a policy perspective, this indicates that direct R&D promotion of firms <br/>with high R&D resources may be misallocated, while attention of public <br/>support should be shifted to smaller, technologically specialised firms with <br/>lower R&D experience.