Technology Spillover Effects Of Import Trade-Theory And Evidence

Understanding of the process of economic growth, the rate of technical change, and the competitive performance of firms, industries and economies as well as the evolution of the structure of production of these economic units ultimately depends on understanding of the underlying process of knowledge production in an economy. The rapidly rising level of economic integration in the late 20^th Century make technology spillovers being a major phase in process of knowledge production. For example, recent work has shown that the major sources of technical change leading to productivity growth in OECD countries are not domestic; instead, they lie abroad. A handful of industrialized countries perform almost all the world's R&D. In 1990, OECD countries accounted for 96% of total world R&D expenditures. Moreover, innovative activity is further concentrated in a few technologically leading countries. So, technology spillover might be particularly important for less developed countries. Some of the major channels for technology spillovers are international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Domestic related research focus on technology spillovers of FDI, the text study technology spillovers of import trade.First, we do a comprehensive survey of trade-related technology spillovers. Three core mechanisms that help induce technology spillovers through trade are: imports of intermediate goods ; dynamic gains from trade-learning-by-doing ; Reverse engineering and imitation. For those models of trade-related technology spillovers, trade increases the amount of accessible technology and the knowledge stock. Coe and Helpman's specification and basic idea for empirics of technology spillovers through trade builds the basis for a wide set of models dealing with international knowledge spillovers.Second, we build the theoretical analytical framework to characterize the phase of the mechanisms of technology spillovers through trade according with the development level of a country. In the first phase, neither innovation nor imitation exists in a more less developed country, if this country can employ intermediate goods imported from the developed country with a high level of technology in the production of the final good, the less developed country also can accelerate economic growth. The main assumption is that the level of human capital in the less developed country determines the range of intermediate goods imported from developed country. In the second phase , there is imitation but no innovation, We explicitly model the mechanism of reverse engineering endogenously and integrate it in a North-South innovation-imitation framework: the South decodes technology embedded in its imports from the North and also exports its own final good to the North. The results reveal that the process of this imitation both accelerates North's growth and increase South's growth. In the third phase, when the less developed countries do R&D, acquiring technology spillover needs more skilled workers. So we study the inter-sectoral distribution of skilled workers under free trade regime and find that the stock of human capital determinates the rate of growth of output when a country switches from an inward- to an outward-oriented trade regime.In the part of empirics, we respectively use industry- and regional-and aggregate-level data to estimate technology spillovers from trade. First, we measure , applying the Malmquist productivity index based on the DEA, the total factor productivity, technical efficiency and technical progress of Chinese manufacturing sector. The relations between import and the productivity growth, the technical progress together with the technical efficiency are then estimated. As a result, import significantly prompt the technical progress and the productivity growth. Secondly, repeating the same process using regional data of China, the result is that import greatly improve productivity growth and technical efficiency, but import, only combined with human capital, enhance technology progress. Finally, we employ recent advances in time-series analysis, cointegration and error correction model , to examine the relationship between imports and technology progress using aggregate-level data of China. In the first place, evidence was obtained about the existence of a long-run relationship among domestic R&D, import-related technology spillovers combined with human capital, and total factor productivity.Our results suggest some policy implications: combining indigenous R&D with technology spillovers; paying more attention to absorption and second innovation; improving the supply structure of human capital.Our findings, at the same time, suggest a number of future research questions and some points to be improved. For to theory parts, how to model the process of transferring from imitation to innovation. In terms of empirics, firm-level data could be more useful for our findings. Whether intermediate imports can influence the efficiency of innovation and also how this influence depends on certain technological characteristics at the industry and firm level; how to decodes technology embedded in its imports from exports when analyzing technology benefits associated with exporting and how FDI enhance productivity in host country: via disembodied technology spillovers or via imports related to FDI are a lengthy research agenda.