| Abstract [eng] |
Research and experimental development are important for companies pursuing business goals, developing and manufacturing higher quality and more innovative products or improving business processes. R&D is closely linked to innovation. R&D is one of the most important factors for creating a new product or process, or for improving an existing one. R&D are of great importance both in the private sector and in the economy in general. Expenditure on R&D is one of the main categories of expenditure that encourages the development of innovative technologies, which in turn promotes productivity and economic growth. Investment in R&D helps to create new products and knowledge that drive growth, thus creating greater demand for labour and thus creating jobs. Although the benefits of R&D for business or the country's economy in general can be very high, the assessment of the impact of R&D in the scientific literature is complex and ambiguous. Researchers argue that spending on R&D, which largely drives innovation, has a positive effect on job creation. However, the opposite view of researchers also exists. The ambiguous impact of R&D spending on labour markets and rising R&D expenditure in the Baltic States defines the research problem: what impact does R&D expenditure have on the Baltic States labour markets? The problematic question defines the object of this work – the relationship between R&D and labour market indicators. The aim of the study is to assess the impact of R&D on the Baltic States labour markets. The analysis of R&D expenditure and labour market indicators in the Baltic States has shown that there may be a link between these indicators, therefore it is expedient to theoretically substantiate and empirically assess the impact of R&D on Baltic States labour market indicators. A review of the scientific literature concludes that there is no unequivocal opinion on the impact of R&D on labour market indicators: on the one hand, innovation leads to job losses due to process innovation; on the other hand, the decline in employment due to process innovation encourages the growth of demand for improved or new products, as well as for labour. Analysis of the scientific literature has led to the decision to empirically analyze the impact of product innovations, measured by R&D expenditure, on the labour markets of the Baltic States: number of employees, employment rate, labour productivity and wages. The results of the empirical study confirmed the theoretical assumptions that the increase in R&D expenditure promotes the growth of the number of employed persons in both the short and long term only in Estonia. The applied econometric models confirmed the theoretical assumption that R&D expenditure in all three Baltic States promotes labour productivity growth. However, the results obtained are not in line with the researchers' view of the declining positive impact of R&D spending on labour productivity in the long run. The results of the applied models confirmed the theoretical assumptions that the increase in R&D expenditure promotes wage growth only in the cases of Lithuania and Latvia. |
