How Effective Are R\&D Tax Incentives? Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence

The Institute of Economics will hold a seminar meeting as part of its Seminar Series on Tuesday, May 7, 2024: Matěj Bajgar from Charles University will present the paper “How Effective Are R\&D Tax Incentives? Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence" (with Silvia Appelt, Chiara Criscuolo, Fernando Galindo-Rueda).

Abstract:

Recent firm-level studies indicate much stronger effects of R&D tax incentives than more aggregate analyses. Based on a distributed analysis of official R&D survey and administrative tax relief microdata for 19 OECD countries, we show that two factors, in particular, can reconcile these contrasting results. Firstly, a limited uptake of R&D tax incentives in most countries makes aggregate studies underestimate the effectiveness of R\&D tax incentives. Secondly, R\&D tax incentives are (much) less effective for large and R&D-intensive firms, which account for a small share of the sample in firm-level studies but for most of aggregate R&D expenditure and R&D tax relief, making firm-level studies overstate the aggregate effectiveness of R&D tax incentives.

Seminar will be in Aula 14 DAF.

For online partecipation use this link.