How national and international financial development affect industrial R&D

We examine the impacts of both domestic and international financial market development on R&D intensities in 22 manufacturing industries in 18 OECD countries for the period 1990–2003. We take account of such industry characteristics as the need for external financing and the amount of tangible assets. Multiple forms of domestic financial development are important determinants of R&D intensity but only foreign direct investment is significant among alternative measures of international financial development. We find the strongest effects for private bond-market capitalization, while FDI, private credit by banks, and stock-market capitalization have similar effects in terms of magnitude.