سرریزهای تحقیق وتوسعه مرتبط با تجارت غیرمستقیم:میانگین دوره ی انتشار تحقیق وتوسعه ی خارجی

The paper estimates the impact on Total Factor Productivity of trade-related R&D spillovers by accounting for the economic distance between countries. The Average Propagation Length foreign R&D covers to reach a domestic country is used in building the foreign available R&D stock and to estimate its TFP impact vs. that of the domestic R&D stock. With respect to 20 OECD countries in the period 1995–2005, the impact on TFP of the available foreign R&D stock is greater than that of the domestic one. Results support the models that recognize indirect trade-related R&D spillovers and provide for them a more accurate interpretation.

The role of international trade in conveying technology flows across countries has been both theoretically elaborated and empirically supported. A considerable number of papers on the so called “trade-related Research & Development (R&D) spillovers” has cumulated over the last twenty years (extensive surveys are Keller, 2004 and van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 1997). A recent development of this research stream is the “indirect” nature of R&D spillovers via-trade. In brief, the idea that these spillovers can occur between two countries also through intermediate ones, even if they are not trading partners ( Lumenga-Neso et al., 2005). A brief example, adapted from Lumenga-Neso et al. (2005, p. 1787), could help in clarifying the point. Suppose we have a simple World of just 3 countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and the US; and that while the Netherlands trade with both Belgium and the US, Belgium does it with the Netherlands only. In the standard R&D spillovers framework, that would entail the US technological knowledge diffuses through trade to the Netherlands only, directly. However, some of the US produced knowledge would reach Belgium too, indirectly, being available in the Netherlands.

International trade is an extremely important means of technology transfer. By importing from a foreign country, a domestic one can have a twofold technological benefit (Lumenga-Neso et al., 2005). First of all, the latter gains from the R&D investments of the former, whose outcomes get embodied in the commodities it sells abroad, that is in terms of direct foreign R&D spillovers. Second, the domestic country also benefits from the R&D investments made by other foreign countries, with which the initial one has traded in turn, in terms of indirect foreign R&D spillovers.