Economic Impacts of Business Investments in R&D in the Nordic Countries

This study offers new insights and knowledge to the question; what is the effect of investments in private R&D? The results show that across the four countries, there is a positive return on additional investments in R&D. This implies that in each of the four Nordic countries for the average company an additional euro invested in R&D has a positive net-return.

At country level, Danish companies obtain the highest marginal rate of return on R&D capital of 34.2 percent. Finnish and Norwegian companies both obtain a marginal rate of return of 22.7 percent, while Swedish companies obtain a marginal rate of return of 16.4 percent. Though the companies have experienced one of the worst economic crises in history, they are still able to generate a strong rate of return on their R&D investments.