Intra-firm Technology Transfer and R&D in Foreign Affiliates: Substitutes or Complements? Evidence from Japanese Multinational Firms

Rene Belderbos, Banri Ito and Ryuhei Wakasugi ()

No 2008-045, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: R&D in foreign affiliates and technology transferred from their parent firms are important potential drivers of productivity in host countries. In this paper we examine the simultaneous impact of local R&D and intra-firm international technology transfer on productivity growth in foreign affiliates. We estimate a dynamic productivity model on a large sample of Japanese manufacturing affiliates worldwide in 1996-1997 and 1999-2000. We find that both affiliate R&D and intra-firm technology transfer contribute to productivity growth, while technology transfer exhibits decreasing marginal returns. The two sources of technology are complements: use of one source of technology increases the marginal impact of the other.

Keywords: R&D; technology transfer; multinational firms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 O32 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2008/wp2008-045.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Intra-firm technology transfer and R&D in foreign affiliates: Substitutes or complements? Evidence from Japanese multinational firms (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2008045

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).