TÜRKİYE’DE AR-GE VE YENİLİK FAALİYETLERİNE YÖNELİK DEVLET TEŞVİKLERİNİN ETKİ ANALİZİ

Abstract

R&D and innovation activities are among the key determinants of sustainable economic growth, increased productivity, and international competitiveness. Incentives, one of the tools of industrial policy, find a wide range of implementation by supporting R&D and innovation expenditures, ultimately aiming to enhance innovation capacity and economic performance. However, since incentives are a form of public expenditure or tax expenditure, they create an additional fiscal burden on the budget. It is imperative to establish a counterbalance between the fiscal burden of incentives and their economic benefits, given the limited nature of public resources and the necessity to ensure efficiency in resource allocation. Therefore, appraising the profitability and efficiency outcomes engendered by incentives at the sectoral and macroeconomic levels is imperative in evaluating the effectiveness of public resources. R&D and innovation activities and profitability are in a cyclical relationship that mutually reinforces each other; increased R&D activities strengthen profit performance in the long term, while the profits obtained encourage the continuation and increase of R&D investments. Within this theoretical and empirical context the study assessed the impact of direct support provided by TÜBİTAK -a pivotal actor in shaping of Turkey's R&D ecosystem- to private sector firms operating across 58 sectors between 2009 and 2021, focusing on their impact on sectoral profitability indicators (including return on assets, return on equity, operating profit margin, and operating profit). The analysis applied the Heckman Selection Model alongside the System GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) estimator to account for selection bias and dynamic panel data effects. Two separate models have been developed to assess the impact of policy preferences that prioritise the manufacturing sector: one that includes only support for the manufacturing sector, and another that covers support for all sectors. This approach provides a framework for policy analysis that takes into account the pivotal role of the manufacturing sector within the context of Sustainable Development Goal 9, which is entitled "Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure". The results from the Heckman Selection Model indicate that export capacity and the number of innovation applications (including patents, utility models, designs, and brands) significantly influence the allocation of TÜBİTAK support, reflecting a picking-winners strategy that targets firms with the highest potential. Findings obtained using the System GMM estimator reveal that no significant effect on the dependent variables is observed when all supported sectors are taken into account. However, the findings indicate that TÜBİTAK support exerts a favourable influence on return on equity, operating profit margin, and operating profit in the manufacturing sector. The findings indicate that TÜBİTAK support contributes to the 9th Sustainable Development Goal of strengthening industry, innovation, and infrastructure in Turkey by improving financial performance in the manufacturing sector.