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RQ Innovative Efficiency and Firm Value

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2021

Michael Cooper*
Affiliation:
University of Utah Eccles School of Business
Anne Marie Knott
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business [email protected]
Wenhao Yang
Affiliation:
School of Management and Economics and Shenzhen Finance Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, [email protected]
*
[email protected] (corresponding author)

Abstract

We introduce and test a firm-level innovation-efficiency measure new to the finance literature. The measure, termed the research quotient (RQ), defined as the firm-specific output elasticity of research and development (R&D), was first developed in the management literature. RQ has a low correlation with existing innovation input, output, and efficiency measures. We test RQ in a number of innovation tests common to the finance literature and find that RQ is robust in all tests of firm value, even after controlling for previous innovation measures. The results suggest that RQ may serve as a relevant complementary measure of a company’s innovation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington

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