Financing constraints, R&D investments and innovative performances: new empirical evidence at the firm level for Europe

The relationship between financing constraints, investments in researchand development (R&D) and innovative performances has recentlyattracted renewed attention in the aftermath of a financial crisis that hasled to problems of access to the credit on which innovation activitiescrucially rely. In spite of past developments in the theoretical analysisand in the data and methodologies for empirical investigation, someissues have remained unexplored to date. In this introduction to thespecial issue, we examine the contribution of the papers it contains,which provide new conceptualisations and empirical evidence at thefirm level for Europe. Most previous research results, which were mainlybased on extending models of financing constraints and physicalinvestments to R&D investments, are confirmed, while new insightsabout this relationship are uncovered, in terms of the structuralcharacteristics of the constrained firms, of the industries in which theyoperate, of their innovative activities and of the innovation outcomesthey achieve.