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From: eem@utai.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Status of R&D in Canada
Message-ID: <3655@utai.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Mar-87 22:35:39 EST
Article-I.D.: utai.3655
Posted: Thu Mar 12 22:35:39 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Mar-87 23:28:42 EST
Distribution: can
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 33

It is widely accepted that Canada spends proportionally significantly less
on R&D than the U.S. Assuming that this is true (R&D expenditures are
tricky to estimate correctly) I have seen a variety of explanations:

1. Brain drain to the U.S.
2. Foreign-owned companies choose to perform R&D not in their Canadian 
subsidiaries but in the US.
3. Canadian companies are a lot smaller that their US counterparts
and therefore have limited R&D budgets.
4. The Canadian economy depends to a large extent on the US for 
technological know-how, and it can get away with it (or pay for it)
because Canada is well endowed with natural resources.

My own opinion is that all of the above are relevant explanations to 
some extent and I was wondering what other people think. Comparison
with countries other than the US or Japan (e.g. France, Germany, Italy, 
Sweden) could be useful.

Evangelos E. Milios	        CSNet: eem@ai.toronto.edu
Department of Computer Science  ARPA:  eem%ai.toronto.edu@csnet-relay       
University of Toronto          	UUCP:  eem@utai.uucp    OR
Toronto, Ontario,                   {ihnp4,decvax,decwrl}!utcsri!utai!eem
Canada, M5S 1A4                 CDNNET: eem@ai.toronto.cdn
(416) 978-8737,978-6114      

-- 

Evangelos E. Milios	        CSNet: eem@ai.toronto.edu
Department of Computer Science  ARPA:  eem%ai.toronto.edu@csnet-relay       
University of Toronto          	UUCP:  eem@utai.uucp    OR
Toronto, Ontario,                   {ihnp4,decvax,decwrl}!utcsri!utai!eem
Canada, M5S 1A4                 CDNNET: eem@ai.toronto.cdn
(416) 978-8737,978-6114