Performance and R&D expenditures in American and Japanese manufacturing firms

This study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to classify manufacturing firms in Japan and the United States into two groups. One group, labelled DEA-efficient', includes firms that were able to utilize their resources (e.g. assets, R&D, employees) efficiently. The other group, labelled 'DEA-inefficient', includes firms that did not utilize their resources as efficiently. Then using non-parametric statistical analysis, the study seeks to find out whether the different treatment of R&D expenditures is attributable to the country of origin of the firms (or the nationality of the managers), or attributable to the ability of the firms to utilize their resources efficiently.