An analysis of R&D efficiency of global top company —based on the panel data of 202 global top companies during the period 1996-2006

This paper examines the R&D efficiency with the panel data of 202 companies from the top 1250 global companies by R&D investment during the period 1996-2006. Employing the method of Cobb-Douglas production function, The results show: there is significant positive correlation between R&D input and enterprise performance in 14 industrial sections of all the 17 industrial sections; In these industrial sections, R&D input is the greatest contribution to enterprise performance; R&D input has bigger output in high-tech industrial sections than in the other sections; from the overall, the R&D efficiency of global top companies is higher than the companies studied by other scholars before.