IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v94y2017icp205-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Import and innovation: Evidence from Chinese firms

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Zhiyuan
  • Zhang, Jie
  • Zheng, Wenping

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between imports and innovation by importing firms. We first construct a theoretical model in which imports stimulate innovation through cost-reducing knowledge spillovers. We then employ a combined micro dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms to estimate the effects of imported intermediates on the firm's R&D investment. The dataset allows us to construct firm-year level instruments for importing and exporting that are uncorrelated with the innovation decision of the firm. Our estimations find that: (1) importing intermediates tends to increase importing firms’ R&D intensity; and that (2) exporting also increases importing firms' R&D intensity. Examining the channels through which importing affects innovation, we find that importing from high-income sources has a greater impact on innovation. High-tech firms tend to experience greater increases in innovation intensity, as do private firms. Our results are supported by a series of robustness checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Zhiyuan & Zhang, Jie & Zheng, Wenping, 2017. "Import and innovation: Evidence from Chinese firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 205-220.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:94:y:2017:i:c:p:205-220
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.02.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292117300338
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.02.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kalina Manova & Zhiwei Zhang, 2012. "Export Prices Across Firms and Destinations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 379-436.
    2. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Jan Svejnar & Katherine Terrell, 2010. "Globalization and Innovation in Emerging Markets," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 194-226, April.
    3. Nina Pavcnik, 2002. "Trade Liberalization, Exit, and Productivity Improvements: Evidence from Chilean Plants," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(1), pages 245-276.
    4. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2004. "Dissecting Trade: Firms, Industries, and Export Destinations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 150-154, May.
    5. Esther Ann Bøler & Andreas Moxnes & Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, 2015. "R&D, International Sourcing, and the Joint Impact on Firm Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3704-3739, December.
    6. Nicholas Bloom & Paul M. Romer & Stephen J. Terry & John Van Reenen, 2013. "A Trapped-Factors Model of Innovation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 208-213, May.
    7. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2011. "An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence From French Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1453-1498, September.
    8. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel Tomás Burstein, 2010. "Innovation, Firm Dynamics, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 433-484, June.
    9. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    10. Paula Bustos, 2011. "Trade Liberalization, Exports, and Technology Upgrading: Evidence on the Impact of MERCOSUR on Argentinian Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 304-340, February.
    11. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    12. Mary Amiti & Jozef Konings, 2007. "Trade Liberalization, Intermediate Inputs, and Productivity: Evidence from Indonesia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1611-1638, December.
    13. Hu, Albert Guangzhou & Jefferson, Gary H., 2009. "A great wall of patents: What is behind China's recent patent explosion?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 57-68, September.
    14. Ricardo Lopez & Niru Yadav, 2010. "Imports of Intermediate Inputs and Spillover Effects: Evidence from Chilean Plants," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(8), pages 1385-1403.
    15. David Hummels & Rasmus J?rgensen & Jakob Munch & Chong Xiang, 2014. "The Wage Effects of Offshoring: Evidence from Danish Matched Worker-Firm Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1597-1629, June.
    16. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Amit Kumar Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Imported Intermediate Inputs and Domestic Product Growth: Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1727-1767.
    17. Brandt, Loren & Van Biesebroeck, Johannes & Zhang, Yifan, 2012. "Creative accounting or creative destruction? Firm-level productivity growth in Chinese manufacturing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 339-351.
    18. Yi Lu Jr. & Linhui Yu Jr., 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Markup Dispersion: Evidence from China's WTO Accession," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 221-253, October.
    19. Petia Topalova & Amit Khandelwal, 2011. "Trade Liberalization and Firm Productivity: The Case of India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 995-1009, August.
    20. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    21. Romer, Paul M, 1987. "Growth Based on Increasing Returns Due to Specialization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 56-62, May.
    22. László Halpern & Miklós Koren & Adam Szeidl, 2015. "Imported Inputs and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3660-3703, December.
    23. Zheng Song & Kjetil Storesletten & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2011. "Growing Like China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 196-233, February.
    24. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    25. Berg, Kimberly A. & Mark, Nelson C., 2015. "Third-country effects on the exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 227-243.
    26. Xiaolan Fu, 2008. "Foreign Direct Investment, Absorptive Capacity and Regional Innovation Capabilities: Evidence from China," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 89-110.
    27. Zheng Wang & Zhihong Yu, 2012. "Trading Partners, Traded Products and Firm Performances of China’s Exporter-Importers: Does Processing Trade Make a Difference?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(12), pages 1795-1824, December.
    28. Liu, Qing & Lu, Yi, 2015. "Firm investment and exporting: Evidence from China's value-added tax reform," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 392-403.
    29. De Loecker, Jan, 2007. "Do exports generate higher productivity? Evidence from Slovenia," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 69-98, September.
    30. Upward, Richard & Wang, Zheng, 2016. "Quota restrictions and intra-firm reallocations: Evidence from Chinese exports to the US," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 71-74.
    31. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1982. "National and International Returns to Scale in the Modern Theory of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 389-405, June.
    32. Lu, Yi & Ng, Travis, 2012. "Do Imports Spur Incremental Innovation in the South?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 819-832.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria Bas & Vanessa Strauss-Kahn, 2014. "Does importing more inputs raise exports? Firm-level evidence from France," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(2), pages 241-275, May.
    2. Fieler, Ana Cecília & Harrison, Ann E., 2023. "Escaping import competition in China," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    3. Pian Shu & Claudia Steinwender, 2019. "The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Firm Productivity and Innovation," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 39-68.
    4. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    5. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    6. Jabbour, Liza & Tao, Zhigang & Vanino, Enrico & Zhang, Yan, 2019. "The good, the bad and the ugly: Chinese imports, European Union anti-dumping measures and firm performance," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 1-20.
    7. Feng, Ling & Li, Zhiyuan & Swenson, Deborah L., 2016. "The connection between imported intermediate inputs and exports: Evidence from Chinese firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 86-101.
    8. Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene & Moxnes, Andreas & Bøler, Esther Ann, 2012. "Technological Change, Trade in Intermediates and the Joint Impact on Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 8884, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Giordano, Claire & Lopez-Garcia, Paloma, 2019. "Firm heterogeneity and trade in EU countries: a cross-country analysis," Occasional Paper Series 225, European Central Bank.
    10. Haichao Fan & Yao Amber Li & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2015. "Trade Liberalization, Quality, and Export Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1033-1051, December.
    11. Chen, Cheng & Steinwender, Claudia, 2021. "Import competition, heterogeneous preferences of managers, and productivity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    12. Manghnani,Ruchita, 2020. "Exports and Productivity : The Role of Imported Inputs and Investment in R&D," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9281, The World Bank.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Paul Romer & Stephen J Terry & John Van Reenen, 2021. "Trapped Factors and China’s Impact on Global Growth [Competition and innovation: an inverted-U relationship]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 156-191.
    14. Alvaro Garcia-Marin & Nico Voigtländer, 2019. "Exporting and Plant-Level Efficiency Gains: It's in the Measure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1777-1825.
    15. Michele Imbruno, 2021. "A micro‐founded approach to exploring gains from trade integration: Evidence from 27 EU countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 706-732, March.
    16. Feng, Gen-Fu & Zheng, Mingbo & Wen, Jun & Chang, Chun-Ping & Chen, Yin E., 2019. "The assessment of globalization on innovation in Chinese manufacturing firms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 190-202.
    17. Kasahara, Hiroyuki & Lapham, Beverly, 2013. "Productivity and the decision to import and export: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 297-316.
    18. Liu, Qing & Qiu, Larry D., 2016. "Intermediate input imports and innovations: Evidence from Chinese firms' patent filings," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 166-183.
    19. Pham, Hoang, 2023. "Trade reform, oligopsony, and labor market distortion: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    20. Larry Qiu & Miaojie Yu, 2014. "Multiproduct Firms, Export Product Scope, and Trade Liberalization: The Role of Managerial Efficiency," Working Papers 022014, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Imports; Exports; R&D intensity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F61 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Microeconomic Impacts
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:94:y:2017:i:c:p:205-220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.