Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and International Technology Transfer : A Survey

Saggi, Kamal

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY;    ARBITRAGE;    ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION;    BRAIN DRAIN;    CAPITAL ACCUMULATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2349
RP-ID  :  WPS2349

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The author surveys the literature ontrade and foreign direct investment--especially wholly-ownedsubsidiaries of multinational firms and international jointventures--as channels for technology transfer. He alsodiscusses licensing and other arm's length channels oftechnology transfer. He concludes: 1) How trade encouragesgrowth depends on whether knowledge spillover is national orinternational. Spillover is more likely to be national fordeveloping countries than for industrial countries. 2) Localpolicy often makes pure foreign direct investmentinfeasible, so foreign firms choose licensing or jointventures. The jury is still out on whether licensing orjoint ventures lead to more learning by local firms. 3)Policies designed to attract foreign direct investment areproliferating. Several plant-level studies have failed tofind positive spillover from foreign direct investment tofirms competing directly with subsidiaries ofmultinationals. (However, these studies treat foreign directinvestment as exogenous and assume spillover to behorizontal-when it may be vertical.) All such studies dofind the subsidiaries of multinationals to be moreproductive than domestic firms, so foreign direct investmentdoes result in host countries using resources moreeffectively. 4) Absorptive capacity in the host country isessential for getting significant benefits from foreigndirect investment. Without adequate human capital orinvestments in research and development, spillover fails tomaterialize. 5) A country's policy on protection ofintellectual property rights affects the type of industry itattracts. Firms for which such rights are crucial (such aspharmaceutical firms) are unlikely to invest directly incountries where such protections are weak, or will notinvest in manufacturing and research and developmentactivities. Policy on intellectual property rights alsoinfluences whether technology transfer comes throughlicensing, joint ventures, or the establishment ofwholly-owned subsidiaries.