Veugelers, R. (2014) “Undercutting the future? European research spending in times of fiscal consolidation“, Bruegel Policy Contribution, Issue 2014/6, June.
Are R&D budgets being smartly used to address growth? How is the crisis affecting public Research & Development budgets across the EU?
The crisis seems to have widened the gap between EU countries in public R&I expenditure. Even though the EU budget serves as mechanism to somewhat ease the growing public R&I divide in Europe – EU funds are relatively more significant for innovation-lagging countries with low national R&I budgets – it is crucial to assess whether the effectiveness of these R&I programmes.
Understanding the degree to which public R&I budgets in the EU have been used ‘smartly’ during the crisis and whether the EU has made ‘smart’ recommendations on public R&I in the European Semester requires an assessment of the long-term impact on growth.
Smart consolidation featuring R&I investment needs to take a long-term perspective and to have sound evaluation frameworks in place to assess whether the potential for high growth returns from public R&I are indeed being realised. Evaluating the effectiveness of public R&I budgets should go beyond assessing short-term additionality impacts. Smart fiscal consolidation by EU member states should include assessments of the longer-term social rates of return.
Relevant posts:
- Acemoglu, D., Naidu, S., Robinson, A. J. & Restrepo, P. (2014) “Democracy causes economic development?“, VoxEU Organisation, 19 May.
- Visco, I. (2013) “The aftermath of the crisis: Regulation, supervision and the role of central banks“, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Policy Insight No.68, December.
- Katsikas, D. (2013) “Brain drain, a new challenge for the Eurozone“, EurActiv, Opinion Article, 25 November.