Public and private incentives to R&D cooperation in Italy

In this paper, we provide evidence on the determinants of R&D cooperation in Italy. Using data concerning firms already engaged in R&D, we find that at least one between public subsidies to R&D and public orders crucially determine firms propensity to cooperate in R&D, whatever the sector, the size or the geographic area. On the contrary, the impact of other determinants (emphasized by previous literature) depends on the kind of data disaggregation–in particular the private orders are not significant in the South of Italy and highly significant in the rest of the country.