Innovation in the Global Firm

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bilir, L. Kamran; Morales, Eduardo
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; National Bureau of Economic Research; Princeton University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/705418
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 1566-1625
• 关键词: research-and-development; foreign direct-investment; multinational production; vertical integration; technology-transfer; empirical-evidence; PRODUCTIVITY; TRADE; regressions; spillovers

摘要

How global are the gains from innovation? When firms operate plants in multiple countries, technological improvements developed in one location may be shared with foreign sites for efficiency gain. We develop a model that accounts for such transfer and apply it to measure returns to R&D investment for a panel of US multinationals. Our estimates indicate that innovation increases performance at firm locations beyond the innovating site: the median multinational firm realizes abroad 20% of the return to its US R&D investment, revealing a spatial disconnect between the costs and potential gains of policies that encourage multinationals' US innovation.