Dissertation--München--Universität, 1999. / Bibliogr. p. 315-336.

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Sci. Gestion--Paris 10, 1996. / En appendice, choix de textes et documents. Index.

Depuis la loi du 15 juillet 1982, la valorisation des résultats de la recherche constitue l'une des missions de la recherche publique. Enjeu majeur du système de recherche français, l'objectif de valorisation a été saisi par le droit, qui tente, par différents moyens, de l'encourager et de l'organiser. La présente étude fait apparaître que la régulation juridique de la valorisation s'opère en deux temps. Dans un premier temps, le législateur s'efforce de rapprocher les sphères publique et privée, estompant la frontière qui les sépare, afin de faciliter la circulation des résultats de la recherche. La régulation institutionnelle de la valorisation passe ainsi par la création d'un cadre juridique favorable à son accomplissement, notamment par des incitations fiscales au profit des entreprises, des structures ad hoc destinées aux établissements et une adaptation du métier de chercheur. Dans un second temps, le législateur délègue aux établissements la charge de conjuguer la valorisation avec les autres missions de la recherche publique. Les établissements doivent alors concilier des objectifs parfois contradictoires. Pour ce faire, ils s'appuient sur le contrat pour reconstituer la frontière entre la recherche publique et les entreprises et réaliser la valorisation de leurs résultats. La souplesse et l'adaptabilité de la technique contractuelle permettent, avec des outils de droit commun – tels que les contrats d'entreprise ou de vente –, de valoriser l'ensemble des résultats de la recherche et des compétences des chercheurs. De cette manière, les établissements parviennent à sauvegarder leurs intérêts et, plus fondamentalement, ceux de la recherche publique, tout en accomplissant leur mission de valorisation. / L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé en anglais.

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The research performed throughout this dissertation aims at implementing quantitative methods in order to assess economic and technological performances of firms, i.e. it tries to assess the impacts of the determinants of technological activity on the results of this activity. For this purpose, a representative sample of the most important R&D firms in the world is constituted. The micro-economic nature of the analysis, as well as its international dimension are two main features of this research at the empirical level.<p><p>The second chapter illustrates the importance of R&D investments, patenting activities and other measures of technological activities performed by firms over the last 10 years.<p><p>The third chapter describes the main features as well as the construction of the database. The raw data sample consists of comparable detailed micro-level data on 2676 large manufacturing firms from several countries. These firms have reported important R&D expenditures over the period 1980-1994.<p><p>The fourth chapter explores the dynamic structure of the patent-R&D relationship by considering the number of patent applications as a function of present and lagged levels of R&D expenditures. R&D spillovers as well as technological and geographical opportunities are taken into account as additional determinants in order to explain patenting behaviours. The estimates are based on recently developed econometric techniques that deal with the discrete non-negative nature of the dependent patent variable as well as the simultaneity that can arise between the R&D decisions and patenting. The results show evidence of a rather contemporaneous impact of R&D activities on patenting. As far as R&D spillovers are concerned, these externalities have a significantly higher impact on patenting than own R&D. Furthermore, these effects appear to take more time, three years on average, to show up in patents.<p><p>The fifth chapter explores the contribution of own stock of R&D capital to productivity performance of firms. To this end the usual productivity residual methodology is implemented. The empirical section presents a first set of results which replicate the analysis of previous studies and tries to assess the robustness of the findings with regard to the above issues. Then, further results, based on different sub samples of the data set, investigate to what extent the R&D contribution on productivity differs across firms of different industries and geographic areas or between small and large firms and low and high-tech firms. The last section explores more carefully the simultaneity issue. On the whole, the estimates indicate that R&D has a positive impact on productivity performances. Yet, this contribution is far from being homogeneous across the different dimensions of data or according to the various assumptions retained in the productivity model.<p><p>The last empirical chapter goes deeper into the analysis of firms' productivity increases, by considering besides own R&D activities the impact of technological spillovers. The chapter begins by surveying the alternative ways proposed in the literature in order to asses the effect of R&D spillovers on productivity. The main findings reported by some studies at the micro level are then outlined. Then, the framework to formalize technological externalities and other technological determinants is exposed. This framework is based on a positioning of firms into a technological space using their patent distribution across technological fields. The question of whether the externalities generated by the technological and geographic neighbours are different on the recipient's productivity is also addressed by splitting the spillover variable into a local and national component. Then, alternative measures of technological proximity are examined. Some interesting observations emerge from the empirical results. First, the impact of spillovers on productivity increases is positive and much more important than the contribution of own R&D. Second, spillover effects are not the same according to whether they emanate from firms specialized in similar technological fields or firms more distant in the technological space. Finally, the magnitude and direction of these effects are radically different within and between the pillars of the Triad. While European firms do not appear to particularly benefit from both national and international sources of spillovers, US firms are mainly receptive to their national stock and Japanese firms take advantage from the international stock.<p> / Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished