Catching-Up and Falling Behind: Knowledge Spillover from American to German Machine Toolmakers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University Hohenheim
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050711002221
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1006-1031
• 关键词: innovation

摘要

Today, German machine toolmakers accuse their Chinese competitors of violating patent rights and imitating German technology. A century ago, German machine toolmakers used the same methods to imitate American technology. To understand the dynamics of this catching-up process, we use patent statistics to analyze firms' activities between 1877 and 1932. We show that German firms deployed imitating strategies in the late nineteenth century and the 1920s to catch-up to their American competitors. The German administration supported this strategy by stipulating a patent law that discriminated against foreign patent holders and by delaying the granting of patents to foreign applicants.