Location of International R&D. The Role of Co-Location with Production Activities.

2 PM, Seminar Room, Department of Economics and Management

Speaker: Davide Castellani, Henley Business School, University of Reading

Abstract

This paper examines the location determinants of offshored R&D activities, focusing on the role of intra-firm linkages along the value chain, between production and R&D. Using data from fDi Markets database, we investigate the location decisions of 6,235 new offshored R&D investments made by 2,756 MNEs in 1,625 cities over the period 2003-2015. Results from a Mixed Logit econometric model reveal that, on average, R&D tends co-locate with previous investments in production activity. However, we find evidence of substantial heterogeneity among firms, related to the types of offshored R&D activity and related to specific and structural differences across industries.