This paper develops an incomplete contract model of the licensing relationship to analyze the dynamic effects of licensing on R&D competition in the innovation market and to examine the rationale for often observed grant-back clauses. Of particular concern are how the consideration of future...

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protect firms from imitation and are considered crucial to promote innovation and technological diffusion. This paper examines the impact of IPR on import sourcing decisions of multinationals. We consider a framework in which firms offshore production of an...

We conduct an empirical investigation into the effects of foreign ownership on worker skills using firm-level data from Spain. To control for endogeneity bias due to selection into foreign ownership, we combine a difference-in-differences approach with a propensity score weighting estimator. Our...

This paper considers the effect of acquisition FDI on the knowledge production function. We distinguish between acquisitions by MNEs from technologically leading countries and those behind the technological frontier. We show that both acquire similarly R&D intensive domestic firms, but there are...

This paper assesses sources of productivity spillovers in China's electric and electronic manufacturing industry using a rich panel data-set of 25,360 firms observed over the period 2004-2007. This industry is characterized by its important reliance on technology. In particular, the paper...

In the last decades, technologies became more complex which increased the degree of uncertainty in R&D. To overcome the uncertainty, firms frequently engage in R&D collaborations, e.g., Research Joint Ventures (RJVs), and licensing agreements. While RJVs are well explored in the literature, very...

We study how incentives for North-South technology transfers in multinational enterprises are affected by labour market institutions. If workers are collectively organised, incentives for technology transfers are partly governed by firms' desire to curb trade union power. This will affect not...