How Special Is the Special Relationship? Using the Impact of U.S. R&D Spillovers on U.K. Firms as a Test of Technology Sourcing

摘要

There is a consensus among economists and policymakers that an important part of global economic growth arises from the transfer of ideas from the leading-edge countries to those behind the technological frontier. The mechanisms underlying this technology transfer are poorly understood, however, and microecono-metric evidence on the quantitative importance of the international spillover process remains thin. In addition, the firm-level evidence on spillovers that does exist tends to be from single countries, and the bulk of these single-country studies are from the United States (US), which, as technological leader in most industries, probably has least to gain from other countries' innovative efforts.