Publication: Openness and Technological Innovations in Developing Countries: Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys
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Date
2008
ISSN
00220388
Published
2008
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Abstract
This paper examines international technology transfers using firm-level data across 43 developing countries. Its findings show that exporting and importing activities are important channels for the transfer of technology. Majority foreign-owned firms are less likely to engage in technological innovations than minority foreign-owned firms or domestic firms. The authors interpret this finding as evidence that the technology transferred from multinational parents to majority-owned subsidiaries is more mature than that transferred to minority-owned subsidiaries. Their findings also suggest that foreign-owned subsidiaries rely mostly on the direct transfer of technology from their parents and that firms that import intermediate inputs are more likely to acquire new technology from their machinery suppliers.
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Publication Openness and Technological Innovations in Developing Countries : Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-08)The authors analyze the role of international technological diffusion for firm-level technological innovations in several developing countries. Their findings show that, after controlling for firm, industry, and country characteristics, exporting and importing activities are important channels for the diffusion of technology. They also find evidence that the majority of foreign-owned firms are significantly less likely to engage in technological innovations than minority foreign-owned firms or domestic-owned firms. The authors interpret this finding as evidence that the technology transferred from multinational parents to majority-owned subsidiaries is more mature than that transferred to minority-owned subsidiaries. This finding supports the idea that equity joint ventures maximize technology transfers to local firms.Publication Technology Adoption and the Investment Climate : Firm-Level Evidence for Eastern Europe and Central Asia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-09)The international diffusion of technology presents an opportunity for developing economies distant from the world technological frontier to reduce their income gap relative to advanced economies. It is therefore crucial to understand why, when faced with similar technological alternatives different firms in different countries choose to adopt different vintages of capital. This paper examines technology adoption across firms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The findings show that access to complementary inputs - managerial capacity, skilled labor, finance, and good infrastructure - and to international knowledge - through foreign direct investment or exports - is an important correlate of technology adoption. The link between market incentives and technology adoption is more nuanced. Although consumer pressure results in technology adoption, competitor pressure does not, suggesting that only firms with rents are able to adopt technology given substantial resource constraints. Privatized firms exhibit better technology adoption outcomes but only when a clear private owner with a profit incentive is present. Better governance is associated with technology adoption only in the countries that joined the European Union in 2004. Future increases in technology adoption by firms in the region will require complementary reforms of the investment climate.Publication Openness and Technological Innovation in East Asia: Have They Increased the Demand for Skills?(2010)This paper examines whether the increased openness and technological innovation in East Asia have contributed to an increased demand for skills in the region. We explore a unique firm level data set across eight countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. Our results strongly support the idea that greater openness and technological innovation have increased the demand for skills, especially in middle-income countries. In particular, while the presence in international markets has been skill enhancing for most middle-income countries, this is not the case for manufacturing firms operating in China and in low-income countries. We interpret this to be supporting the premise that, if international integration in the region continues to intensify and technology continues to be skilled biased, policies aimed at mitigating the skills shortages should produce continual and persistent increase in skills.Publication The Effects of Business Environments on Development : Surveying New Firm-Level Evidence(2010-08-01)In the past decade, the World Bank has promoted improving business environments as a key strategy for development, which has resulted in a significant amount of investment in collecting firm-level investment climate surveys across countries. What lessons have emerged from the papers using these new data? The key finding is that the effects of business environments are heterogeneous and depend crucially on industry, initial conditions, and complementary institutions. Some elements of the business environment, such as labor flexibility, low entry and exit barriers, and a reasonable protection from the "grabbing hands" of the government, seem to matter a great deal for most economies. Other elements, such as infrastructure and contracting institutions (courts and access to finance), hinge on their initial status and the size of the market.Publication North-South Technology Spillovers: The Relative Impact of Openness and Foreign R&D(2010)This paper examines the relative contribution of openness and the R&D content of trade to North-South trade-related knowledge diffusion and TFP growth. The measure of foreign R&D used in the literature on trade-related knowledge diffusion imposes identical contributions to TFP of openness and the R&D content of trade. We show that this restriction is not warranted and that openness has a greater impact on TFP than R&D. This finding is particularly strong in low R&D-intensity industries and--as might be expected--not as strong in R&D-intensive ones. The results indicate that the impact of openness on TFP in developing countries is larger than previously obtained in this literature, and that developing countries can obtain larger productivity gains from trade liberalization than previously thought.
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