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With the exception of enterprise expenditures on computers, soft-ware and databases, on entertainment, literary or artistic originals as well as on mineral exploration, which are classified as investment spendings in the new system of national accounts. Such expenditure was estimated at over DM 20 billion for Germany in 1995, of which around DM 18 billion were for software and databases alone. Comparative figures for other countries are not yet available.
The research was carried out within the framework of reports on Germany's technological performance prepared for the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (cf. Dieter Schumacher, Florian Straßberger and Harald Trabold, FuE-Aktivitaten, Humankapital, Außbenhandel und Wirtschaftsstrukturen: Materialien zur erweiterten Berichterstattung zur technologischen Leistungsfähigkeit der Bundesrepublik im internationalen Vergleich, Berlin 1997); some of the findings are also presented in the joint report prepared by the four participating institutes (cf. NIW/DIW/ISI/ZEW, Germany's Technological Performance. Update and expanded report 1996, Hannover /Berlin/Karlsruhe/Mannheim 1997).
Cf. Birgit Gehrke and Hariolf Grupp, Innovationspotential. Technologische Position der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im internationalen Wettbewerb, Heidelberg 1994.
National interest in certain technologies can also be based on other, non-economic factors, such as military technologies to produce the public asset of “national security” and large-scale technologies whose time horizons exceed the planning frame of private decision-makers.
However, there is not always a positive relationship between R&D intensity and production, employment and/or profit growth. In particular, sectors with high internal R&D expenditure are often not highwage sectors.
Cf. Heike Belitz, Internationalisation of Research and Development in Multinational Companies, in:Economic Bulletin, vol 33, no. 6, June 1996.
Excluding health services provided by university clinics and as far as possible R&D in universities. In fact, R&D in universities is included to varying degrees in the different countries. The expenditure recorded for third-level education is thus too high, and there is double counting in the table 3 figures for education spending which include R&D expenditure. For Germany, almost all R&D in universities (0.4% of GDP) is included in the education expenditure recorded by the OECD.
In the German system, elementary education is provided in kindergardens, primary education in grades 1 to 4 (primary schools), secondary education in grades 5 to 13 (lower-secondary schools, integrated comprehensive schools, intermediate secondary schools, academic secondary schools and vocational schools) and all subsequent education at third-level establishments (technical and specialised technical colleges, universities).
There are only very few statistics available for international comparison of continuing training and they are essentially confined to further training measures for the unemployed.
At DM 156 000, the sum for Germany is of the order of magnitude calculated in another study (cf. Friedrich Buttler and Manfred Tessaring, Humankapital als Standortfaktor. Argumente zur Bildungsdiskussion aus arbeitsmarktpolitischer Sicht, in:Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, 4/1993, pp. 167–476).
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Schumacher, D., Straßberger, F. Knowledge intensification in industry: How well prepared is Germany?. Economic Bulletin 34, 9–16 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02671718
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02671718