We estimate a gravity model to address the question of whether Africa's bilateral trade with industrial countries is 'unusual' compared with other developing country regions. Our main finding is that the unusually low level of African trade is explained by economic size, geographical distance...

The authors examine the extent to which developing countries that do little, if any, research and development themselves benefit from R&D that is performed in the industrial countries. By trading with an industrial country that has a large 'stock of knowledge' from its cumulative R&D activities,...