ANALYSIS OF THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EFFICIENCIES OF EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

Research and Development (R&D) activities of the countries are of crucial importance in order to compete in the emerging market. Although this importance is widely recognized, the efficiency of these activities has been rarely examined in the literature. Therefore, this study is an attempt to analyze the R&D efficiencies of European Union (EU) member countries. EU countries are selected for this study since the competition between these countries is very high and they invest a significant amount of resources in this area. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used in order to measure the relative efficiency scores. Then, the effect of political and regulatory environment on R&D efficiencies of EU countries is analyzed via hypothesis testing. The relative efficiency scores and hypothesis test results give valuable information for social policy makers in making decisions about planning R&D activities. The findings will also be useful for the countries aiming to participate the union, such as Turkey.