China’s Technology Spillover Effects in the Countries along the Belt and Road — Evidence from 49 BRI Countries

China ’s aims for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are to improve the trade and investment conditions along the BRI routes and develop a value-sharing platform with countries along the route to promote mutual benefits. Studies have found it’s possible that international trade and investment could lead to technological progress in the host countries. However, over the past 7 years, the effects of the BRI have not been fully evaluated and therefore, there is no clear evidence as to whether China, as an emerging economy, has had the ability to promote technology development in the BRI countries, or as to whether the BRI countries have the ability to effectively absorb imported technology. Therefore, to clarify the gains of the BRI and provide future guarantees for political mutual trust and deepening economic integration, this paper examined the technological progress in 49 BRI countries from 2003 to 2017. It was found that China had dual-channel technology spillover effects from trade and investment with the evaluated BRI countries; with the introduction of the BRI, the trade channel technology spillover effects had an increasing trend and the investment impacts were more persistent.