EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN LOCAL AND GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS

Barrios, Salvador and Bertinelli, Luisito and Heinen, Andreas (2007): EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN LOCAL AND GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS.

Abstract

We measure the effect of R&D spillovers on plant productivity by taking account of (i) the national origin of the spillovers, (ii) the mechanism through which spillovers may flow (FDI and/or imports), (iii) the sectoral scope of spillovers, as well as (iv) their geographic scope, in a single analytical framework. Our analysis is based on an exhaustive database on Irish manufacturing plants covering the period 1986-1994. The results show that while domestic plants benefit from local R&D spillovers, these spillovers are spatially bounded. Domestic plants are also able to tap into the global R&D pool, but only via the presence of multinational plants located near them. In contrast, there is no evidence that foreign affiliates located in Ireland are recipients of local R&D spillovers. Foreign affiliates do, however, gain from the size of the R&D stock in their origin country.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: R&D, knwoledge spillovers, multinationals, international trade, Ireland
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O30 - General; F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F14 - Empirical Studies of Trade; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; L - Industrial Organization > L6 - Industry Studies: Manufacturing > L60 - General

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