R&D cooperation and choice of partner, in high and low-tech industries. Evidence from Italian firms

R&D cooperation is central in the strategy of firms: in order to innovate, firms may need knowledge outside their own boundaries, using in their production process, acquaintances they do not have. In recent years, an increasing branch of the economic literature has focused on the determinants of cooperative behavior of the firms. In this paper we explore this issue, studying the determinants of R&D cooperation in Italy. In particular, we contribute to the literature using for the analysis an original dataset, containing firm level information about R&D activity, balance sheets, and other relevant variables. This allows us to build robust explanatory variables, based on objective measures and balance sheet indexes, improving the literature on R&D cooperation. Differently from previous literature, we consider human capital as one of the determinants of cooperation. Moreover, we disaggregate the population in high tech and low tech firms and distinguish the cooperation by partner, and by size (SMEs and Large firms).