Knowledge Flows, Structure of Innovative Activity and International Specialization

Franco Malerba () and Fabio Montobbio

No 119, KITeS Working Papers from KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy

Abstract: This paper is a first attempt towards the full inclusion of a group of variables greatly studied in the current literature on innovation and industrial economics -such as knowledge links and the structure of competition and collaboration in a sector -into the determinants of the international technological specialization of countries. In particular, the major role of knowledge flows across sectors indicates that knowledge is a key factor affecting specialization and that the currently used notion of inter-sectoral spillovers has to be disentangled in a more detailed way and given a more precise meaning. It also points to that fact that a lot of theses knowledge flows are captured within a country. In particular this paper uses international trade, patent and citation data at a very fine level of disaggregation. It, first, shows that the relationship between international technological and trade specialisation of countries is positive and statistically significant. This extends previous results to a finer level of disaggregation and to a more recent time span. Secondly the determinants of technological specialisation are analysed. In particular the focus has been placed on the knowledge connections among sectors (in terms of patent citations), some key structural features of technological classes related to Schumpeterian competition (such as the concentration and asymmetries in innovative activities and the emergence of new innovators) and the relevance of networks in terms of technological co-operation. These variables have in general positive effects on the international technological specialisation of countries and important differences across sectors in the relevance of the factors affecting international specialisation emerge.

Keywords: Technological specialisation; Trade specialisation; Knowledge spillovers; Market structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2000-11, Revised 2000-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-net and nep-tid
Note: This paper is part of the Research Project: Sectoral Systems in Europe - Innovation, Competitiveness and Growth (ESSY). Third Research and Technological Framework Programme, Targeted Socio-Economic Research, TSER
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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