Investigating the impact of investment in research and development on export performance of enterprises in provinces of Iran

Subject Areas : Regional Planning

mohammad mahdi barghi oskooee ¹ , behzad salmani ² , rahim saemi ³

1 - Associate Professor of Economics, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
2 - Professor of Economic, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
3 - Ph. D Student of International Economic, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Received: 2019-07-31 Accepted : 2019-12-08 Published : 2021-01-20

Keywords: Keywords: Exports of industrial enterprises, investment in research and development, Provinces of Iran, systematic generalized of moments,

Abstract :

Abstract
Nowadays, non-oil exports play an important role in import currency in the country. Experimental studies on exports show that the enterprises export rate is affected by various factors such as exchange rate, productivity and investment in research. The presents study aims to investigate the impact of investment in R & D on export performance of enterprises in provinces of Iran during 2000-2015, using systemic Generalized Method of Moment (GMM). Due to political geographical changes of the provinces in aforesaid years, country divisions are included 28 provinces and Alborz, North and south Khorasan provinces are not considered in the study as separate provinces. The required data are collected using the library and documentary method of annual census reports of industrial workshops in more ten employees and more of it and regional accounts in statistical center of Iran. The result of model estimation indicate that investment in R & D has a positive and significant impact on improving the export performance of enterprises so that increasing 1% investment in R & D leading to 0.063% increase in the export performance of enterprises. In addition to examine the impact of investment in R & D, the explanatory variables such as advertising costs, work force productivity, human capital, market share of industry sector of the total market of each province and total industry expenditure have been investigated. Results indicate that they have a positive impact on export performance of enterprises. Findings also showed that the work force productivity and market share of industry sector variables had the most impact on export performance among explanatory variables
Introduction
Nowadays, activities in research and development (R & D) pay an effective role in creating and developing knowledge and technology, improving the working methods and process, providing new opportunities for entrepreneurship and business development and consequently improving the economic growth state in enterprises. These activities are identified as the driving and main factor in the industrial and economic development of all enterprises and are one of the important factors to reinforce the technological power and economic growth of countries. The present study aims to investigate the impact of R & D costs on export performance of enterprises in 28 provinces of Iran (in workshops with 10 Labor force and higher) during 2000 -2015. The leading hypothesis of this study is that the R & D costs have a positive impact on export performance of enterprises. Due attention to the role of research in the development of new technologies in the production of goods and consequently the positive impact of R & D on industrial exports, the central question of this study is followed here, How dose investment in R & D affect export performance of enterprises?
Methodology
In the study, is used the GMM-SYS to investigate the impact of R & D costs on export performance of enterprises. In this method, according to the use of time series and cross sectional data simultaneously and apply. The dependent variable lag as explanatory variables, the estimation problems such as correlation and linearity do not occur. Therefore, the estimations are more reliable and trustworthy. The GMM is used when the number of cross sectional variables (N) is higher than the number of times and years (T). The dependent variable in the study is export performance (export value proportional to sale value per enterprise) and R & D costs, total industry expenses, human capital, advertising cost, Labor productivity and market share of industry sector of the total market of each province is considered as an independent variable in the model. Required information was collected using the library and documentary method from annual census reports of industrial workshop with higher than 10 workers and more and regional accounts in statistical center of Iran and all of these variables were considered logarithmically and in fixed price 2011.
Results and discussion
Before the model estimation, validity of the instrumental variables and auto regression order of the disturbance terms are tested. The result show that the null hypothesis is not rejected on validity of the instrumental variables and lack of second order autocorrelation between disturbance terms.
Therefore, the instruments used in the model are valid and the disturbance terms have first order serial correlation AR (1) and no second order serial correlation AR (2). According to the results of model estimation, the export performance of enterprises in the previous period has led to the improvement of export performance of enterprises in the present period, so that increasing 1% export performance of enterprises in the previous period leading to 0.55% increase in the export performance of present period. In other words, change in the level of industrial export performance did not terminated in only one period. The investment variable coefficient in R & D has positive and significant impact on the export performance of the province enterprises. So that increasing 1% investment in R & D, leading to 0.063 improvements in the export performance of enterprises. Investment in advertising also has a positive effect on the export performance of enterprises and impact of this variable has been consistent with empirical studies and theoretical basics. So that, increasing 1% investment in advertising until, leading to 0.13% increase in the export performance of enterprises in provinces.
The result of this study, explain the positive impact of human capital on export performance of enterprises in the provinces of country, so that, by 1% increase in the ratio of educated worker to total workers in the industrial sector, the export performance of enterprises will increase by 0.00002 percent. The relatively low human capital variable coefficient indicates that there must be more investment in the higher educated specialist workforce sector. The labor productivity variable has a positive effect on export performance, so that, increasing 1% labor productivity in the industrial sector leading to 6.47% increase in the export performance of enterprises. The labor productivity growth decrease the production costs and increase the competitiveness power of manufactures and exporters internationally, because, growth of this factor reduces price level and average production costs and increase the profitability of manufactured products, so that, its positive outcome will also have a significant impact on increasing the competitiveness of domestic industries in international markets. The results of estimation show that the coefficient variable of market share of industry sector of the total market is positive on export performance and equals to 3/67, that is, increasing 1% in the share of industry sector of the total market, leading to 3/67 increase of export performance of enterprises.
Conclusion
Estimation result of research model during 2000 – 2015 show that the investment in R & D leads to increase the export performance of enterprises in provinces of Iran. With due attention to the positive impact of investment in R & D on the export performance of enterprises, it is suggested to government and economic planners provide financial support through financial facilities payment and tax exemptions in association with enterprises investing in R & D on their agenda. Measures should be taken in the country to increase labor productivity, because it is one of the most effective variables affecting the industrial export performance in provinces. Increase of labor productivity will result in an increase in real effective exchange rate and indeed increase the competitiveness and finally improve the export performance, because of affecting the price levels. As well as, increase of labor productivity will result in increase in the level of enterprises export due to increased production capability and comparative advantage in the production process.
Keywords:Exports of industrial enterprises, investment in research and development, provinces of Iran, system generalized of moments.
 

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