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.