This Paper studies the effect of knowledge diffusion on the incentives for developed countries’ (DC) firms to undertake costly transfer of production knowledge of an input to their developing countries’ (LDC) suppliers whose costs of production vary inversely with their technological effort. We distinguish between upstream knowledge diffusion, which occurs when the technology diffuses to other suppliers not directly engaged in the technology transfer process, and downstream knowledge diffusion, which occurs when other buyers learn from the incumbent DC firm to procure the same input from the trained LDC supplier(s). We show that when the cost of improving production efficiency is high, and hence where the incentive for technological effort is low, technology transfer is encouraged (discouraged) by upstream (downstream) knowledge diffusion. When, however, the cost of engaging in technological effort is low, and hence where technological effort has a significant impact on the input price, the opposite results obtain: upstream knowledge diffusion discourages technology transfer as increased competition reduces the incumbent supplier’s incentive to undertake technological effort thus lowering the value of technology transfer for the DC firm. Downstream knowledge diffusion encourages technology transfer by increasing the demand for the supplier’s product and hence the technological effort undertaken.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
4085.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets O14 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology O19 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations O32 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D O33 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Ai-Ting Goh & Jacques Olivier, 2002.
"Optimal Patent Protection in a Two-Sector Economy,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1191-1214, November.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)