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BPEA | 1990: Microeconomics

The Impact of Corporate Restructuring on Industrial Research and Development

Bronwyn H. Hall
Bronwyn Hall
Bronwyn H. Hall University of California, Berkeley
discussants: Ernst R. Berndt and
Ernst Berndt
Ernst R. Berndt Professor in Applied Economics Emeritus - MIT Sloan School of Management
Richard C. Levin

Microeconomics 1990


MANY CLAIM that the mergers, leveraged buyouts, and restructurings in the U.S. corporate sector during the 1980s had a detrimental effect on industrial spending for research and development. Critics of this recent activity point to the stagnation in real R&D expenditures by the private sector during the 1980s and suggest that these restructurings were a major cause of the decline. Others view this process as a healthy revitalization of U.S. industry in the face of foreign competition and a changing regulatory and financial environment.