An Analysis Of The Effect Of Technology Content And Technology Spillover Of Imported Machinery In China

Technological promotion is the intrinsic power of economic growth for a country in the long term. Technological promotion can be achieved by improving innovation capability as well as by introducing advanced technology from abroad. For the developed countries, R&D activities are the main channel for obtaining new technology and new products, while the achievement of technological innovation for the developing countries is quite limited due to weak technological basis and lack of fund and talents. Import trade is an important channel for technology spillover whose effect is directly related to the trade structure. Namely, in the open economy, for the developing countries with inadequate innovation capability, they can improve their technology by introducing hi-tech from developed countries through technology spillover instead of by independent R & D, which is an important channel for the developing countries to achieve technological advance and narrow the technology gap with developed countries at the lowest cost and in the most convenient way. It is no doubt that the effect of technology spillover is quite different among different products and it will have different effects on the promotion of technology in a country. Machinery contains the highest technology among trade products. Therefore, it is an important channel for introducing technology from abroad.This paper first uses import and export data of trade goods based on the three SITC classification code of our country from 1985 to 2007 as well as import and export data and per capita GDP of 106 countries over the same period to construct the technology content index and quantify the technical structure of China's imports machinery. At the same time, we compare it with that of Japan and South Korea. And based on this, we research the relationship between technological structure of imported machinery in China and total factor productivity through the modification of the CH (1995)Model. That is to investigate whether the introducing of technology really promotes the economy growth in China. Finally, the paper puts forward some strategies concerning how to improve import trade structure and to achieve a rapid economic growth.