According to theory, direct R&D grants should be used for projects with low private returns, high social returns and high risk. R&D tax credits, on the other hand, allow firms to choose projects freely according to their private returns. Building on the standard R&D capital model, I develop a framework for estimating private returns to R&D projects with different types of funding. I apply the framework to estimate the corporate returns to subsidized R&D projects in Norway. Consistent with theory and a high quality grant allocation process, I find that projects funded through direct grants have private returns that are not significantly different from zero and with high variance, while the return to R&D projects financed by tax credits is just slightly below the return to R&D projects financed by own funds. The latter two return estimates are 16 % and 19 % respectively. I find that SMEs and small R&D performers have somewhat higher returns to R&D than larger firms. The overall return estimate across all types of finance is 15 %. This is in line with recent meta-regression results in the international literature. JEL Codes: H25, O32, O38

中文翻译：

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企业对补贴研发项目的回报：直接赠款与税收抵免融资

根据理论，对低私人回报，高社会回报和高风险的项目应使用直接的研究与开发补助金。另一方面，R＆D税收抵免允许企业根据自己的私人回报自由选择项目。在标准的研发资本模型的基础上，我开发了一个框架，用于估算使用不同类型资金的研发项目的私人回报。我使用该框架来估算挪威受补贴的研发项目的企业收益。与理论和高质量的拨款分配过程一致，我发现通过直接拨款资助的项目的私人收益与零没有很大差异，并且差异很大，而由税收抵免资助的R＆D项目的收益仅略低于收益由自有资金资助的研发项目。后两个收益估计分别为16％和19％。我发现中小型企业和小型R＆D绩效企业的研发收益要比大型企业高。所有类型的融资的总收益估算为15％。这与国际文献中最近的元回归结果一致。JEL代码：H25，O32，O38