Supply chain issues have garnered considerable attention during recent years, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas many causes and effects of supply chains have been studied, this paper focuses on an aspect that has largely been ignored—the effects of supply chain constraints on research and development (R&D) spending. Using cross-country data from numerous countries over the past decade, we find support for our main hypothesis that supply chain constraints undermine R&D spending. However, different dimensions of the supply chain have quantitatively different effects on research spending. Interestingly, we find evidence of the legacy of supply chain issues from pre-pandemic days to impact more recent R&D spending. Finally, the main findings are robust to consideration of reverse causality issues. Implications for technology policy are discussed.
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