경기순환과정에서 현금흐름과 기업특성이 연구개발지출에 미치는 영향

In a recession, firms vacillate between reduction strategies which cut back discretionary spending such as R&D expenditures and differentiation strategies which increase R&D expenditures for the competitive advantages in economic recovery. Decreased cash flows during recession could make the firms reduce the R&D expenditures (Hall, 2002; Himmelberg & Petersen, 1994). On the other hand, Hall(1997) and Bloom et al., (2007) insist that firms try to maintain the R&D expenditures regardless of business cycle because of expected adjustment costs after the R&D expenditures reduction. The effect of conflicting factors determining R&D expenditures could be different according to each firm's characteristics. This study is to investigate what factors affect R&D expenditures during recessions and the effect of conflicting factors are different according to according to each firm's characteristics, such as firm's size and industries. The samples are divided into two groups according to firm's size. The results show that all firms are influenced by the decreased cash flows during recessions, but the large firms control the reduction of R&D expenditures because they can be externally financed. Next, we classify samples by high-tech industry and low-tech industry based on Chan(1990). The findings show that most firms consider the decreased cash flow when they decide the R&D expenditures during recessions, but firms in high-tech industries control the reduction of R&D expenditures due to the expected adjustment costs after reduction of R&D expenditures. Evidence provides many implications in deciding firm's R&D expenditures and designing government policy of R&D subsidy during a recession.