1、中文 2100 字， 1695 单词 外文翻译 原文 The effect of technological innovation on international trade Material Source:Economics discussion papers Author:Mrquez-Ramos, Laura Martnez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada International trade theory highlights the importance of technological innovation in explaining a countrys intern
2、ational competitiveness(Posner 1961； Vernon 1966； Fagerberg 1997).Schumpeter (1944) viewed economic development as a dynamic process deriving from industry and exports, with innovation playing a key role in the development of both. Empirical work linking trade to technological innovation based on a
3、gravity framework show that the effect of technological innovation on exports varies with country characteristics.Loungani et al.(2002)assessed the importance of information links that associate technological innovation with lower communication costs,and stated that the negative effect of physical d
4、istance on trade could be reduced by reducing the barriers to informational flows.These authors distinguished between developed and developing countries when analysing whether better informational infrastructure can substitute for geographical distance. Their results indicate that the degree of subs
5、titution between physical and informational distance varies systematically based on country characteristics. The authors tested for a purely linear relationship between informational infrastructure and trade without considering any threshold effects. Fink et al. (2005)analysed the effect of communic
6、ation costs on bilateral trade flows by taking into account that this effect might vary with sectoral characteristics. Their results show that cross- country variations in communication costs have a significant effect on international trade. Indeed,they found that lower communication costs foster di
7、fferentiated good trading to a greater extent than homogeneous good trading.Since information and communication needs are much greater for differentiated goods, trade in these products is likely to be more sensitive to variations in communication costs (Harris 1995). These results may depend on the
8、measure of innovation that is used. Indeed, Kuznets (1962)noted the problems with that the lack of appropriate innovation measures may create in economic research related to inventive activity. In recent years, considerable attempts have been made to measure technological innovation across countries
9、.Wakelin (1997)classified different proxies for technological innovation used in the literature and pointed out that the main choice of technological innovation proxies was between using an input to the innovation process,such as Research and Development (R&D) expenditure or the number of scientists
10、 and engineers employed in research departments, or an output, such as number of patents.In a more recent study,Keller(2004)pointed out that technological innovation is an intangible that is difficult to measure directly and that the three indirect approaches that can be used are the measurement of
11、inputs (R&D),outputs(patents)and the effect oftechnological innovation(higher productivity). Technological innovation has been defined as a countrys“absorption capacity”-the ability to put information from abroad into practice by developing new products and processes which play a key role in interna
12、tional trade and economic development.Therefore,the development of relevant indicators to measure the level of technological innovation-seen as absorption capacity- across countries is of great interest in a knowledge-based economy with high and increasing dependence on information technology and hu
13、man capital.Mrquez- Ramos et al.(2007) have recently compiled a number of indices and variables to measure the achievement of technological innovation,understood as absorptive capacity. As a nations technological achievements are very complex, it is difficult to capture them in any single index that
14、 reflects the full range of technologies and quantifying aspects of technology creation, diffusion and human skills. These early papers mainly focused on the timing of innovations and considered R&D investment and human skills as the main drivers of innovation, but do not view the technological inno
15、vation process as absorptive capacity.Cohen and Levinthal (1990)introduced the concept of absorptive capacity,which is the ability to recognise the value of new,externalinformation,to assimilate it,and to apply it.These authors consider two faces of technological innovation:creation and absorption.
16、In their model,some level of absorptive capacity is necessary to create,and the cost of adoption increases as absorptive capacity falls.Hence,technological innovation is considered to reduce the cost of adoption. Zahra and George(2002) distinguished not only two subsets (potential and realised absor
17、ptive capacity),but also four dimensions of absorptive capacity: acquisition, assimilation,transformation and exploitation capabilities.Knowledge acquisition and assimilation capabilities compose the potential absorptive capacity, whereas knowledge transformation and exploitation compose in the real
18、ised absorptive capacity. Their model highlights external sources of knowledge and experience as key antecedents of absorptive capacity.Along these lines, the learning process will lead to an ambiguous effect of technological innovation on exports that will affect the capacity of the country (sector
19、) to acquire,assimilate,transform and exploit new external information. On the one hand, the more experience about techniques gained by using them, the greater the rate at which these techniques become more productive. On the other hand, international transmission of new techniques carries a cost be
20、cause learning-by-doing must occur locally in order to reduce local costs. Hence, the learning process must be taken into account to analyse the relationship between technological innovation and exports at a national level. This relationship could significantly differ depending on the specific compo
21、nent of technological innovation considered. With respect to the TAI index, a higher potential absorptive capacity could be related to a higher level of technology creation and diffusion of old innovations, whereas a higher realised potential absorptive capacity could be related to a higher level of
22、 diffusion of recent innovations and human skills. This being said, one measure that has attempted to capture technological innovation in a relatively broad manner is the Technological Achievement Index (TAI),which has been used in empirical analyses(Martnez-Zarzoso and Mrquez-Ramos2005；Mrquez-Ramos
23、 2007).This index has been constructed using indicators of a countrys achievements in four dimensions: creation of technology,diffusion of recent innovations, diffusion of old innovations and human skills. These analyses have shown that technological innovation is of great importance to foster expor
24、ts. We can infer from the above-mentioned results that,to the extent that technological innovation is associated with lower communication costs,both internally and externally,we should find similar results as those of Fink et al. (2005) in our empirical application using the TAI index. The main aim
25、of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between technological innovation and international trade. A non-linear relationship between these two variables would indicate that the effect of improved technological innovation on trade could vary according to the technological ac
26、hievement in countries.Hence,the form of heterogeneity we investigate here is whether a countrys level oftechnological innovation achievement (or ability) affects the relationship between technological innovation and trade.This effect is analysedseparately, firstly for developed and developing count
27、ries to determine whether other differences in economic development also affect the innovation- trade relationship, and secondly for different sectors, in order to pursue the results pioneered by Fink et al. (2005) in a non-linear framework. The aggregated results show that a “U-shaped” relationship
28、 exists between exports and diffusion of old innovations, whereas an inverted U-shaped relationship is found between exports and diffusion of recent innovations and between exports and human skills.With respect to the more specific results, on the one hand the sectoral results indicate that the effe
29、ct of the importers TAI on trade is similar for all categories of goods. However, whereas the effect of the exporters TAI for differentiated goods shows an inverted U-shaped relationship, a U-shaped curve is found for the rest. Hence, while technological innovation improvements seem to have a greate
30、r effect on exports of differentiated goods for the intermediate levels of technological achievements, the effect on exports for referenced and homogeneous goods is found to be more marked for the very high levels of technological achievement. On the other hand, the results of the specific country-g
31、roups show that when the importer is a developed country, technological achievement has a positive effect on exports which is magnified for higher levels of technological innovation. Otherwise,when the importer is a developing country, a U-shaped relationship between TAI and trade is found. The impo
32、rtance of our results falls in several areas. Methodologically speaking, we obtain a model of threshold effects of technological innovation on international trade.In terms of policy conclusions, we find that different levels of technological innovation are associated with different effects on export
33、s in developed and developing countries, as well as in different sectors, owing to the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between technological innovation and trade. The main message concerning the development strategy to be followed by developing countries is that, according to our
34、findings, countries exports would benefit from higher levels of technological innovation if they are able to achieve a minimum level of acquisition and transformation capabilities. Hence, investment leading to achieve these thresholds is desirable. The last few decades have witnessed important chang
35、es in international trade patterns, with an increasing number of countries that have become closely linked to one another through international trade and foreign direct investment.Technological innovation plays an important role in this world-wide inter- dependence.Within this framework, internation
36、al trade theory highlights the importance of technological innovation in explaining the international competitiveness of a country (Fagerberg 1997). Classical thinking,which stressed international differences in technology in conjunction with international differences in real wage levels as a source
37、 of comparative advantage, dominated trade theory until the appearance of the HeckscherOhlin (HO)theory which centred on resource endowments as the main factor explaining international trade patterns. Nevertheless, technological innovation once again came to the forefront of research into trade with
38、 the development of the technology gap (Posner 1961) and the product cycle theories (Vernon 1966). On the one hand and according to Posners assumptions(1961), trade is generated by differences in the rate and nature of innovation. On the other hand, Vernon (1966) places less emphasis on the comparative cost doctrine3 and more on the timing of innovation. Along these lines, Jones and Bhagwati (1970) considered the way in which the HO model could be applied to Vernons product cycle theory. Vernon argued that developed countries tend to have a comparative advantage in producing those
