On October 21st, 2019, Dr. Mark J. Roberts from Pennsylvania State University, visited the School of Finance at Nankai University and gave a presentation on his recent research “Firm R&D Investment and Export Market Exposure” in Room 234.

In the presentation, Dr. Mark J. Roberts discussed differences in the returns to R&D investment between exporting and domestic firms. Using German data from high-tech manufacturing sectors, he estimates a dynamic structural model of a firm’s decision to invest in R&D. The estimation result shows that R&D investment leads to higher rates of product and process innovation and productivity improvement for firms with larger export market exposure.

Dr. Mark J. Roberts is a Liberal Arts Professor of Finance at the Department of Economics, Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin in 1980. He is a Research Associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research interests are applied microeconomics and industrial organization. He has published in leading academic journals such as American Economic Review、Econometrica、Review of Economic Studies、and The Quarterly Journal of Economics, etc..