The Realization Path of Trade Enabling Innovation: New Evidence from Cross-border Patent Citations of Chinese Enterprises
Abstract:Economic openness, international trade and technological innovation of enterprises are the core topics in the study of international economics and innovative economics. The technology flow and spillover hidden and embedded in product trade is an important content and perspective to understand opening up and innovation. This article uses backward citations of Chinese enterprise invention patents to characterize and measure the transnational flow and spillover of technology in an innovation context, thereby identifying and testing the technological flow and spillover effects of international trade on Chinese enterprise innovation at a micro level. This study shows that imports have a significant and robust positive impact on the backward citations of corporate invention patents, which means that when other conditions are constant, the larger the scale of an enterprise's import from a country, the more times its applied invention patents reference patents from that country; In contrast, the impact of exports is not robust. Further analysis in this article also shows that the technological advantages of import source countries and the technological absorption capabilities of enterprises themselves are important factors affecting the technology flow and spillover effects (heterogeneity) of international trade on enterprise innovation. The research in this article has certain practical implications for achieving high-level opening up and building a new development pattern of domestic and international dual circulation that mutually promote each other under the background of innovation-driven development.
