Direct and cross-scheme effects in a research and development subsidy program

This study investigates the effects of an R&D subsidy scheme on participating firms’ net R&D investment. Making use of a specific policy design in Belgium that explicitly distinguishes between research and development grants, we estimate direct and cross-scheme effects on research versus development intensities in recipients firms. We find positive direct effects from research (development) subsidies on net research (development) spending. This direct effect is larger for research grants than for development grants. We also find cross-scheme effects that may arise due to complementarity between research and development activities. Finally, we find that the magnitude of the treatment effects depends on firm size and age and that there is a minimum effective grant size, especially for research projects. The results support the view that public subsidies induce higher additional investment particularly in research where market failures are larger, even when the subsidies are targeting development

The Impact of Immigration on the Wage Distribution in Switzerland

Recent immigrants in Switzerland are overrepresented at the top of the wage distribution in high and at the bottom in low skill occupations. Basic economic theory thus suggests that immigration has led to a compression of the wage distribution in the former group and to an expansion in the latter. The data confirm this proposition for high skill occupations, but reveal effects close to zero for low skill occupations. While the estimated wage effects are of considerable magnitude at the tails of the wage distribution in high skill occupations, the effects on overall inequality are shown to be negligible

Growth kinetics of copper thin films in different MOCVD systems

Thin copper films were grown in two different MOCVD systems using bis- (2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,5-heptadionato)-copper, [Cu(thd)2], as precursor. The experiments were carried out in a horizontal hot-wall quartz reactor and a vertical coldwall apparatus of stainless steel. The thicknesses of the films were measured by profilometry, the absorption coefficients k at a wavelength of 1300nm by ellipsometry and the electrical sheet resistances by four-probe measurements. The growth kinetics, which depends on the partial pressure of the precursor, on the reaction gas type and on the substrate temperature, will be discussed. A mechanism will be given for the MOCVD process in the horizontal system