Article ID: | iaor1993925 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 38 |
Issue: | 9 |
Start Page Number: | 1264 |
End Page Number: | 1279 |
Publication Date: | Sep 1992 |
Journal: | Management Science |
Authors: | Erickson Gary, Jacobson Robert |
Keywords: | allocation: resources, research, advertising |
The authors explore the extent to which R&D and advertising expenditures generate a comparative advantage that allows firms to earn supranormal profits. After controlling for unobserved firm-specific factors and the feedback between discretionary expenditures and profitability, the present results suggest substantially lower accounting and stock market returns to R&D and advertising than indicated in previous research. Isolating mechanisms, which prevent imitation, do not appear sufficient for either R&D or advertising expenditures to generate, on the average, a long-run comparative advantage.