Asian and OECD international R&D spillovers

Previous studies have demonstrated an empirical relationship between accumu lated R&D expenditures and total factor productivity (TFP), and have shown that the benefits of R&D can spill across countries through trade. This pap er extends these analyses to a sample of 15 OECD countries and six Asian co untries, Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Korea, Singapore and Thailand. A n empirical model is estimated which relates TFP to domestic and foreign R& D activity, TFP catch-up and business cycle variables. Model estimates show that TFP and domestic R&D capital are positively related, and that domesti c R&D has a relatively large impact on TFP growth in the NICs and LICs. Cou ntry-specific international R&D spillover elasticities are of mixed sign, a nd no apparent pattern by country group is evident. While this result does not change the earlier qualitative conclusions, it suggests that estimates of sample average R&D spillover elasticities should be cautiously interpret ed.