Recently, Foreign Invested Enterprises (FIEs) in China have increased their investment in not only production activity but also R&D activity. This paper examines the impact of spillovers from such activities on two types of innovations by Chinese domestic firms: Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and invention patent application, using comprehensive industry and province-level data. We evaluate such spillovers according to FIEs' ownership structure, the origin of foreign funds, and the type of their activity: R&D, and production. We find an interesting asymmetry between spillovers to TFP and patent application:while we do not find significant intra-industry spillovers from FIEs, which is in line with previous studies, we find robust inter-industries spillover on TFP. On the other hand, we find substantial intra-industry spillovers promoting invention patent application but no evidence of inter-industries spillovers. Furthermore, whereas spillovers from FIEs to Chinese firms' TFP stem from their production activities, the source of spillovers to invention patent application is mostly through their R&D activity. Our findings indicate a need for multi-dimensional evaluation on the role of FDI in developing countries.Keywords: China, FDI spillovers, R&D, Innovation JEL classifications: O12;O3;F23;O53 This paper is one of the products of DRC-RIETI joint research. We are grateful to Masahisa Fujita, Masayuki Morikawa and participants of the DRC-RIETI joint workshop at RIETI and DRC for their valuable comments. Remaining errors are those of the authors. The opinions expressed in this paper do not reflect those of RIETI or DRC of the State Council,
Although Japanese firms in various industries enjoyed outstanding success during the 1980s, the recent economic news has been less favorable. Like their American counterparts, Japanese managers have faced difficult decisions regarding plant closures, layoffs, and moving production facilities overseas. Many Japanese business leaders attribute the innovation successes of the 1980s, at least in part, to economies of scale resulting from increases infirm size. If this assertion holds true, the current economic climate in Japan seems certain to result in diminished economies of scale for innovative activities. Ryuhei Wakasugi and Fumihiko Koyata test this assertion in a statistical study of the innovation efficiency of Japanese electrical machinery firms. In other words, their study explores whether the hypothesized economies of scale apply to the innovation inputs and outputs of these firms. They examine the manner in which R&D expenditures, patent applications, and product developments relate to the size of Japanese electrical machinery firms during the late 1980s and early 1990s—a period marked by high levels of innovative activity among these firms. For the Japanese electrical firms in this study, innovation inputs that is, R&D expenditures—increase in greater proportion than firm size. In other words, the larger firms in this study pursued their innovation efforts more aggressively than did the smaller firms in the study. In terms of R&D expenditures, however, the study does not reveal any resulting economies of scale for either patent applications or product developments. Similarly, analysis of the data in this study does not identify any economics of scale for product developments as a result of increases in firm size. In fact, the only economies of scale identified in the study involve firm size and the number of patent applications. In general terms, the statistical evidence in this study does not support the hypothesis that an increase in firm size improves the efficiency of innovation activity. To put this another way, the study does not provide evidence to support the hypothesis of economies of scale in product development.
It is notable that the trade in East Asian countries has increased more than proportionately to the growth of economy. This paper tests the hypothesis that the recent trade expansion is induced by development of international fragmentation of production. This paper constructs an index of vertical intra-industry trade (VIIT) to measure the fragmentation of production, and finds that the share of VIIT has been rising in East Asia as well as in NAFTA and the EU using the gravity equation. It also establishes that a rising share of VIIT is an important factor in explaining the recent expansion of trade with East Asia. The results suggest that an agreement to remove and harmonize institutional impediments among East Asian countries is important for further expansion of trade within the region. (c) 2007 The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In offshore sourcing, a firm chooses outsourcing to independent suppliers or insourcing from own foreign direct investment (FDI) subsidiaries. Based on the firmlevel data on offshore make-or-buy decision covering all manufacturing industries, this paper compares averages, documents inter-firm distributions, and estimates multinomial logit models of the firm's sourcing mode choice. As predicted by previous theoretical models, this paper directly confirms at the firm level that outsourcing firms tend to be substantially labor-intensive compared with firms in-sourcing from the same region, even after the firm's R&D intensity, firm size, or industry is controlled for. (JEL F23, L23, L24, L14)
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