Beyond Trading: Knowledge Spillovers and learning-by-exporting in Global Value Chains

Holger Graf and Hoda Mohamed ()

No 2023-008, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: Does exporting intermediate goods induce learning from importers? In this paper, we examine to what extent learning from German industries can be explained by knowledge spillovers, channeled through the export of intermediate goods. Our study is based on a sample of 27 German trade partners in 14 manufacturing industries for the period 2004 to 2016. Using data on patent citations and trading in intermediate goods, we find support for the widely known "learning-by-exporting" hypothesis. Our analyses reveal that citations to German patents are positively related to exported intermediate goods weighted by German R&D expenditure. The relationship between these spillovers and learning seems to be particularly strong in certain industries. We also show that the level of absorptive capacity of the exporting trade partner, as measured by the number of researchers involved in R&D activities, plays a role in mediating these spillovers.

Keywords: GVC; trade; intermediate goods; learning-by-exporting; knowledge spillovers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 O14 O32 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-07-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-int, nep-knm, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2023/wp_2023_008.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Beyond trading: knowledge spillovers and learning-by-exporting in global value chains (2025)
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:jrp:jrpwrp:2023-008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Markus Pasche ().