A Rise in Software R&D
Foreign-owned firms are driving R&D spending on intangible assets.
In this article written for the Policy Options, we look under the hood of the familiar story of Canada's lagging R&D investments. We find an interesting shift away from R&D in manufacturing towards more intangible R&D investments in areas like software development. This finding not only suggests that major changes are underway in where innovation is happening in our economy, but also raises a number of questions surrounding whether or not we are accurately measuring the innovative activity that is taking place, and who ultimately benefits from these R&D investments since an increasing proportion of the Canadian-based firms that are spending on new kinds of R&D are foreign-owned.
