Testing Schumpeterian growth theory: the role of income inequality as a determinant of research and development expenditures (developed economies) and successful technology transfers (developing economies)

摘要

This paper tests a strand of Schumpeterian growth theory that predicts a role forincome inequality as a determinant of technology-enhancing activities, in the shape ofinnovation in the North and of technology transfers in the South. The analysis isconducted at three different levels: by world region, by industrial sector and by country.While the analysis by world region does not produce any clear cut evidence, the analysisby sector yields some evidence that income inequality in the South may have a positiveeffect on research and development (RnD) expenditures in some industrial sectors locatedin the North, such as non electricals and pharmaceuticals. Income inequality in bothworld regions seems also to play a role on the amount of technology that is transferred tothe developing world. The sign of the effect might be positive for some sectors andnegative for others, but the overall impact is probably negative in the case of Northernincome inequality and positive with respect to Southern income inequality.However, the strongest evidence came from the cross-country analysis. We found that foreach of the 15 OECD countries, foreign income inequality in the countries that trade themost with them, had a positive effect on the research and development expenditurecarried out in those 15 countries. Such evidence appeared robust to whether weintroduced control variables or not, and to several ways of measuring the dependentvariable and the independent variables concerned. The cross-country analysis alsoyielded some evidence of a positive effect of both domestic and foreign (mainlydeveloped world) income inequality on the level of technology transfers to developingcountries.