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This thesis explores two important aspects of growth, namely the roles of financial development and inequality. The recent literature has indicated that both the finance-growth and inequality-growth relationships are complex and not well captured through conventional linear regression analyses. Thus, most of the existing empirical literature focuses on marginal or direct growth effects, ignoring the role of possible factors, conditions and thresholds that may alter our thinking about how financial development or inequality may affect economic growth. Further, it ignores the presence of outliers, especially in cross-sectional analyses which may hinder our understanding of these relationships. Therefore, Chapter 1 addresses the issue of outliers in finance-growth literature and provides a robust sensitivity analysis of some past studies and an updated data set. Chapter 2 focuses on whether R&D plays a role, potentially as a proxy for an omitted variable, for growth and whether it has important interactions with financial development. Chapter 3 then examines the role of inequality for growth, allowing the effects to differ depending on the level of human versus physical capital accumulation.The cross-sectional analysis of Chapter 1 employs the robust regression methods of median quantile regression and least trimmed squares. It shows that the findings of past studies are sensitive to outlier observations. Further, we find that the positive effect of financial development on growth disappears and even becomes negative once we use our extended data set of 86 countries over the period 1997-2006. This last finding is consistent with Rousseau and Wachtel (2011). Moreover, we investigate whether our understanding of the finance-growth relationship can further be improved by introducing a measure of R&D into the standard analysis. We note that our measure of R&D has a strong positive effect on growth and may proxy the role of an omitted variable which is highly correlated with economic growth.Chapter 2 also uses R&D and investigates its interaction with conventionally measured financial development. It employs a variety of panel data techniques for a panel of 36 OECD and non-OECD countries to show that the relationship between financial development and economic growth is not straightforward; rather, it is conditional upon the level of innovation or R&D. Further, we find that a high level of technological innovation or R&D is associated with a weak or negative effect of financial development on economic growth. It is also noted that R&D is associated with financial innovation and the results suggest that countries with a high level of R&D may have less regulated financial systems which can adversely affect the finance-growth relationship.The third chapter explores the relationship between inequality and growth in the context of a unified empirical approach suggested by the theoretical model of Galor and Moav (2004). Based on that model, we construct a new measure, the human capital to physical capital ratio, which is used to study threshold effects in the inequality-growth relationship. Methodologically, we use threshold regression with instruments, developed by Caner and Hansen (2004), which allows us to endogenously identify the threshold human capital to physical capital ratio that alters the inequality-growth relationship. Using data on 82 countries, our results show that there exist significant threshold effects, with a level of the human capital to physical capital ratio below which the effect of inequality on growth is positive and significant, whereas it is negative and significant above it. We also test the robustness of our results using different measures of the human capital to physical capital ratio. These results are consistent with the theoretical predictions of Galor and Moav (2004).

本研究旨在探討研發取得策略，情境因子，研發人力資本，與公司績效之間的關聯性。藉由理論模型的推導與實務訪談研發中心主管來發展假說，進而以混合資料模型(pooled data models)與橫斷面資料模型來進行實證分析。主要結果為：當公司的研發多樣化程度較高，專利權數目較少，公司較可能採取內外部研發並進策略(R&D hybrid strategy)，而非完全內部研發策略(make strategy)。最重要地，過度/低度的外部研發取得(under-/over-external R&D sourcing)對於公司績效有負/正向影響。相較於會計績效，此效果對市場績效的影響尤其顯著。同時，研發取得策略對於公司績效的影響，取決於公司的研發人力資本。相較於採取完全內部研發策略的公司，為了吸收外來的異質技術，採取內外部研發並進策略的公司較可能聘任不同研發種類的研發人員；而如此的研發取得策略與研發人力資本契合將進而改善會計與市場績效。本研究的發現與交易成本理論與supermodular理論一致。如同預期，相較於橫斷面資料模型，本研究的實證分析在混合資料模型較為顯著。 / The association between performance and R&D sourcing strategy in relation to contextual variables and R&D human capital is determined by the analytical model coupled with field interviews with directors or managers in R&D centers. Capitalizing on a unique database of the 2001-2003 Taiwan Industry R&D Investment Survey containing more detailed information available on the R&D activities to verify this association, the researcher tests the empirical results by cross-sectional and pooled data models. The findings are that an innovating firm will prefer to implement the R&D hybrid strategy when the higher degrees of R&D diversity and fewer counts of patents are exhibited. Perhaps most importantly, this study shows compelling evidence that over-/under-external R&D sourcing affects negatively/positively a firm’s performance. This effect is more significant in the market-based performance (Tobin’s q and average two-year Tobin’s q) than accounting-based performance (ROS and ROA). Moreover, the associations between R&D sourcing strategy and a firm’s performance are contingent on the use of R&D human capital. Innovative firms with the R&D hybrid/make strategy are more/less prone to employee diverse types of R&D experts to absorb the coming external knowledge, and such alignment between R&D sourcing strategy and R&D human capital thus improves both accounting- and market-based performance. The results are consistent with both transaction cost paradigms that discriminating alignment of transactions with strategy leads to more efficient outcomes, and the supermodularity model that a firm’s performance is a function of coherent alignment between strategy and structural elements of an organization. As predicted, these effects are noticeable and more pronounced in the pooled data model than in the cross-sectional design.