International R&D spillovers, R&D offshoring and economic performance: A survey of literature

This paper surveys what we know about international R&D spillovers, with a particular attention devoted to the business literature that link the R&D internationalization to economic performance. Despite the fact that there is a large literature on the internationalization of R&D at the country level, there are only few studies that examine the implications of international innovation and research activities at different levels of disaggregation. The few studies that exist emphasize the significance of international R&D and R&D offshoring in promoting economic performance. However, the existing literature comes finally with different conclusion as regards the relative importance of international spillovers and, the evidences presented so far with respect to R&D offshoring are still far from being conclusive.