Credit Constraints and Innovation Activities: Empirical Evidence on Russian Enterprises

Abstract

This article studies the relationship between the credit constraints on Russian enterprises and their decision to introduce product innovation, process innovation, and to spend on research and development (R&D). The evidence regarding the relationship between R&D spending remains somewhat ambiguous and could differ between countries. A cross-sectional macro dataset of the World Bank Enterprises Survey in Russia in 2019 is used in a system of seemingly unrelated regressions. The results show that the existence of credit constraints is associated with a lower probability of introducing product innovations and spending on R&D activities. Nevertheless, there is no significant relationship between being credit constrained and the enterprise decision to introduce process innovations. The importance of this article stems from the fact that previous works showed that these relationships differ by country and that these relationships are considered simultaneously, while other works concentrate mainly on one of these relationships.

Keywords

• credit constraints
• financial constraints
• innovation activities
• research and development
• world bank enterprises survey