R&d Cooperation and Spillovers: Some Empirical Evidence from Belgium

Successful innovation depends on the development and integration of new knowledge in the innovation process. Part of this knowledge will reach the firm from external sources. Several authors have documented the existence of these external information flows and have commented on their importance for decisions at the firm level (Adam B. One challenge facing this literature has been the measurement of these information flows or " spillovers " between firms and gauging their effect on different innovation management decisions by the firm. While assessing spillovers, it is important to distinguish between incoming spillovers, which affect the rate of innovation of the firm, and appropriability, which affects the ability of the firm to appropriate the returns from innovation. The information sources for incoming spillovers are usually situated in the public domain, and their usefulness to the firm depend on the firm's ability to create information flows from this public pool of knowledge. But firms also attempt to appropriate the benefits of their innovations by controlling the information flows out of the company into the pool of publicly available information. The relevance of distinguishing between incoming spillovers and appropriability is revealed when we use these measures to analyze their impact on the decision of firms to engage in cooperative R&D agreements. The relationship between different knowledge flows—spillovers—and R&D cooperation is complex. The theoretical literature has mainly focused