← Search

American Economic Review Vol. 96 No. 5 2006

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

Rachel Griffith1; Rupert Harrison1; John Van Reenen2

1 Institute for Fiscal Studies, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE. · 2 Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE.

open access

Abstract

We examine the “technology sourcing” hypothesis that foreign research labs located in the U.S. tap into U.S. R&D spillovers and improve home country productivity. We show that U.K. firms that established a high proportion of inventors based in the U.S. by 1990 benefited disproportionately from the growth of U.S. R&D stock over the next ten years. We estimate that U.S. R&D during the 1990s was associated with 5 percent higher Total Factor Productivity for U.K. manufacturing firms in 2000 (about $13 billion), with the majority of benefits accruing to firms with an innovative presence in the U.S.

DOI
10.1257/aer.96.5.1859
Volume
96
Issue
5
Pages
1859-1875
Language
en
Sources
openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

Cite