This doctoral dissertation studies the effect of economic integration on the performance of firms. The ongoing process of global economic integration has been characterized by dismantling of trade barriers and openness to foreign direct investments (FDI). These changes have not only brought opportunities to firms in terms of market access and the possibility to learn about foreign technologies brought in by foreign counterparts. The new economic environment has also posed new challenges through a greater competitive pressure urging firms to continuously align their production patterns to more efficient business practices. The agility of firms to adjust to external shocks, and hence the potential of countries to benefit from economic integration, does presumably not only depend on the internal assets of firms but may also be influenced by government policies and national institutional settings. This conceptual background constitutes the storyline of the doctoral dissertation. Chapter 1 of the dissertation is a step forward in understanding the externalities of foreign direct investments on the economic performance of domestic firms. During the late eighties and early nineties, Spain saw an upswing in foreign direct investments that placed the economic at the top of FDI recipients in Europe. To provide fresh insights into the firm-levels responses to FDI, Chapter 1 investigates the effects of foreign direct investment on the productivity of domestic firms within the same sector of activity as foreign firms, and whether FDI externalities differed depending on their level of technology. The empirical results show that foreign presence had an overall positive effect on the productivity growth of domestic firms. The gains were not, however, evenly distributed across firms. Firms closer to the frontier benefited more from FDI than firms far from the technology frontier. A further integration of the world economy with new economic actors, like China and India, has highlighted the need for European firms to climb the quality ladder and shift towards high value added products and greater flexibility in delivering new products in order to survive new competitive threats. Chapter 2 is a theoretical and empirical examination of the role of innovation for the export activities of firms. The intuition is that firms through innovation enhance their access to foreign markets by improving cost competitiveness and the quality of products. The Chapter builds on previous literature to develop a trade model in which firms differ in their propensity to innovate and export based on their underlying productivity. The empirical results, in line with the theoretical model, suggest a positive effect of innovation on the probability of participation in export markets. The innovative activities of firms may not only depend on their internal assets, but presumably also on their relations with other actors in the national innovation systems. To understand better the role of firms’ relations with the science sector, Chapter 3 turns to one of the major producers of knowledge –universities- and investigates the factors that contribute to the successful transfer of knowledge from universities to the market. The results from Chapter 3 show that universities with established technology transfer policies, procedures, and large and experienced technology transfer offices perform better. Previous chapters demonstrate that innovation gives a competitive edge to firms exploring foreign markets. Chapter 4, which is joint work with economists from France’s central bank, investigates how credit market imperfections affect the expansion and survival of firms in foreign markets, which is essential for the design of policies stimulating aggregate trade and competitiveness. Chapter 4 develops a theoretical model to study the impact of credit constraints on the number of newly served export destinations by firms and their exits from the export market and tests it using French firm-level data. The results show that credit constraints negatively affect the number of newly created export relations and have a negative effect on the probability of exit from the export market.

[pt] A inovação impulsiona o crescimento econômico e se conecta com o ciclo evolutivo das firmas, que lançam novos produtos em uma busca contínua pela melhoria do desempenho. Com o advento da inovação aberta, mais firmas passaram a complementar sua base de conhecimentos e a abastecer o processo inovador com fontes externas. Entretanto, quando a inovação é desenvolvida, parte dos novos conhecimentos também se torna pública por meio dos knowledge spillovers, potencialmente beneficiando outras firmas. A relação entre o desempenho inovador e as fontes externas de conhecimento, como a colaboração da firma com seus parceiros, foi amplamente estudada em mercados desenvolvidos. Contudo, o mesmo não se observa para os knowledge spillovers, especialmente no caso de países menos avançados em relação a inovação. Este estudo analisou em que medida os conhecimentos externos fornecidos pela colaboração com parceiros, e, em especial, pelos knowledge spillovers da indústria, afetam o desempenho inovador de produto e o crescimento das firmas. Foi proposto um modelo conceitual para mensurar a contribuição relativa dessas fontes, bem como o impacto exercido pelo porte das firmas sobre as relações estudadas. A análise foi conduzida para uma amostra de 913 firmas de manufatura colombianas, com dados extraídos da pesquisa sobre inovação EDIT, para o período de 2011 a 2016. As hipóteses foram testadas utilizando a técnica de modelagem de equações estruturais. Para entender o impacto do porte das firmas foi empregada a análise multigrupo. Os resultados apoiaram a maioria das hipóteses e forneceram alguns insights. Os efeitos positivos da colaboração da firma sobre o desempenho inovador de produto foram corroborados, revelando que ambientes escassos em recursos, como o da Colômbia, incentivam a colaboração independentemente do porte da firma. Quanto aos efeitos positivos dos knowledge spillovers da indústria sobre o desempenho inovador de produto, o suporte foi dependente do porte da firma. Para as pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs), esses efeitos não apenas foram confirmados, como se provaram superiores aos da colaboração com parceiros. Esse achado evidenciou que os knowledge spillovers da indústria são a fonte mais relevante na explicação do desempenho inovador de produto das PMEs colombianas, mesmo quando a colaboração da firma também é significativa. No caso das grandes empresas (GEs), a contribuição direta dos knowledge spillovers da indústria sobre o desempenho inovador de produto não foi significativa, possivelmente relacionada a sua maior abundância interna de recursos. Já para o efeito moderado pela capacidade absortiva, a contribuição foi negativa, possivelmente indicando que as perdas de conhecimentos geradas pelos outgoing spillovers estão prejudicando o desempenho inovador de produto das GEs. O estudo também corroborou que o crescimento das firmas de ambos os portes é positivamente influenciado pelo seu desempenho inovador. Entretanto, os resultados para os knowledge spillovers da indústria sugerem que as PMEs colombianas podem estar se comportando oportunisticamente, pegando carona excessiva nos investimentos em P&D das GEs, o que pode reduzir os incentivos dessas últimas em seguir investindo em inovação. Espera-se que os achados desse estudo contribuam com os esforços da Colômbia em criar melhores condições para que a inovação prospere. / [en] Innovation drives economic growth and connects with the firms evolutionary cycle that launches new products in a continuous quest for performance improvement. With the advent of open innovation, more firms have begun to complement their knowledge base and to fuel the innovative process with external sources. However, when innovation is developed, part of the new knowledge also becomes public through knowledge spillovers, thus potentially benefiting other firms. The relation between innovation performance and external knowledge sources, such as the firm s collaboration with partners, has been extensively studied in developed markets. However, the same is not observed for knowledge spillovers, especially in the case of countries that are less advanced with respect to innovation. This study analyzed the extent to which external knowledge provided by the collaboration with partners and especially the industry knowledge spillovers affect product innovation performance and firm growth. A conceptual model was proposed to measure the relative contribution of these sources as well as the impact of the firm size on the studied relations. The analysis was conducted on a sample of 913 Colombian manufacturing firms with data extracted from EDIT innovation research for the period 2011 to 2016. The hypotheses were tested using the structural equation modeling technique. To understand the impact of firm size on the model relationships, a multigroup analysis was carried out. The results supported most hypotheses and provided some interesting insights. The positive effects of the firm collaboration on product innovation performance were corroborated, revealing that resource-scarce environments, such as Colombia, encourage collaboration regardless of the size of the firm. As for the positive effects of industry knowledge spillovers on product innovation performance, support was contingent on the firm size. For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), not only were these effects confirmed but also proved to be superior to those of collaboration with partners. This finding makes it evident that knowledge spillovers are the most relevant source in explaining the product innovation performance of Colombian SMEs, even when the firm collaboration is also significant. In the case of the large enterprises (LEs), the direct contribution of the industry knowledge spillovers on product innovation performance was not significant, possibly due to their greater internal abundance of resources. For the effect moderated by the absorptive capacity, the contribution was negative, possibly indicating that the knowledge losses generated by outgoing spillovers are detrimental to the innovation performance of these firms. The study also corroborated that the growth of firms of both sizes is positively influenced by their innovation performance. However, the findings for industry knowledge spillovers suggest that Colombian SMEs may be behaving opportunistically, excessively free-riding on R&D investments of LEs which may reduce the incentives for the latter to keep investing in innovation. It is hoped that these findings will contribute to Colombia s efforts to create better conditions for innovation to thrive.

This paper concentrates on the central link between productivity and knowledge capital, and shifts attention from firms and industries to regions. The objective is to measure knowledge elasticity effects within a regional Cobb- Douglas production function framework, with an emphasis on knowledge spillovers. The analysis uses a panel of 203 European regions to estimate the effects over the period 1997-2002. The dependent variable is total factor productivity (TFP). We use a region-level relative TFP index as an approximation to the true TFP measure. This index describes how efficiently each region transforms physical capital and labour into outputs. The explanatory variables are internal and out-of-region stocks of knowledge, the latter capturing the contribution of interregional knowledge spillovers. We use patents to measure knowledge capital. Patent stocks are constructed such that patents applied at the European Patent Office in one year add to the stock in the following and then depreciate throughout the patents effective life according to a rate of knowledge obsolescence. A random effects panel data spatial error model is advocated and implemented for analyzing the productivity effects. The findings provide a fairly remarkable confirmation of the role of knowledge capital contributing to productivity differences among regions, and adding an important dimension to the discussion, showing that knowledge spillover effects increase with geographic proximity. (authors' abstract)

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of various channels of technology spillovers on local innovative capacity at national and firm level. At national level, the thesis investigates the drivers of Malaysia‟s innovative capacity and the effect of international external sources on innovative capacity. At firm level, this thesis examines the impact of FDI on the innovation progress and studies whether multinational corporations (MNCs) can act as catalysts to stimulate local firms‟ innovation activities in Malaysia. Via a case study analysis at firm level, this thesis focuses on knowledge transfer through backward linkages established between MNCs and their local suppliers. Time series data analysis is conducted to provide empirical evidence of the effect of FDI spillovers on Malaysia‟s innovative capacity at national level. Additionally, a case-study approach is adopted to investigate the impact of vertical FDI spillovers on the innovation performance of local Malaysian firms. The key findings of the study reveal that export-related spillovers are positively associated with Malaysia‟s innovative capacity, whereas importrelated spillovers play a minor role in local innovation. The findings also indicate that there is no significant correlation between economic development and local innovation, which suggests that strong economic growth is not a necessary condition in order for Malaysia to enhance its local innovative capacity. The results suggest that there is strong evidence of the importance of foreign innovation activities to local innovative capacity at national level. In contrast, knowledge spillovers measured by FDI inflows have no significant impact on local innovative capacity. The results showed that FDI might be constrained by the fact that spillovers are more likely to take place through vertical relationships than horizontal relationships. At firm level, the study suggests that knowledge and technology can be diffused through high-quality and standard requirements imposed by MNCs, the assessment and feedback and training programmes offered by MNCs to local suppliers, as well as the production process itself. These results extend ii the existing literature on national innovative capacity and validate earlier theoretical and empirical research on vertical spillovers. The findings from the thesis also have important policy and managerial implications with regard to the impact of FDI on host developing countries.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivos revisar alguns estudos quantitativos de transbordamentos de conhecimento e testar suas ferramentas num aglomerado brasileiro. Estes métodos são amplamente utilizados na literatura internacional e, após esta revisão, foi executada uma pesquisa no Sistema Local de Produção (SLP) de Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) de Campinas. A discussão sobre as características, qualidades e limitações destes cinco tipos de estudos (função produção de conhecimento, citação de patentes, mobilidade de trabalhadores qualificados, comércio de novos produtos e contatos informais) levou a opção de aplicar uma pesquisa baseada principalmente no método dos contatos informais e, de modo exploratório, numa variante da citação de patentes que usa as citações de artigos científicos como indicador primordial. O questionário foi respondido por profissionais da região que atuam em atividades de TIC. Entre os resultados da pesquisa alguns se sobressaem. Primeiro, há uma expressiva presença de transbordamentos de conhecimento na região de Campinas e esta é uma importante forma de obtenção de conhecimento por parte dos funcionários das empresas do ramo de TIC. Segundo, os funcionários com maiores capacitações e com maior experiência no setor tendem a obter conhecimento mais valioso de seus colegas. Terceiro, os funcionários de empresas multinacionais obtém menos conhecimento de seus contatos informais, pois têm acesso a outros meios para resolução de problemas dentro da própria firma, enquanto isso, os funcionários de empresas brasileiras tendem a recorrer a seus colegas para a resolução de problemas. Por fim, pela análise das citações de artigos científicos, foi possível evidenciar que o conhecimento está realmente concentrado uma vez que a grande maioria das citações são para trabalhos de autores vinculados a instituições de Campinas. / This dissertation goals are review some quantitative studies of knowledge spillovers and test its tools in a brazilian case. These methods are largely adopted in international literature and, after the review, two of theses methods have been applied to the Campinas Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Local System. The discussion about characteristics, qualities and limitations of five types of studies (knowledge production function, patent citation, mobility of skilled worker, commerce of new products and informal contacts) induced to adopt the informal contact method as the main tool of analysis and a variant of patent citation that uses scientific articles citations as the primordial indicator. The questionnaire was responded by professionals engaged in ICT activities in several Campinass firms. Among the results, some are more expressive. First, there is a great presence of knowledge spillovers at Campinas region and it is an important way that ICT firms workers gain access to knowledge. Second, more skilled employees and that with more experience tend to obtain more valorous knowledge from theirs colleagues. Third, the multinationals workers gain less knowledge from theirs informal contacts because they has access to other forms inside the firm to solve problems, otherwise, the brazilian firms employees tend to use their colleagues to solve problems. Finally, with the analysis of scientific articles citations, it is possible to see some evidence that the knowledge is really locally concentrated because the great majority of citations are to works with authors linked to Campinas institutions.

O entendimento dos fatores locacionais que afetam a inovação ajuda a compreender a localização das atividades inovativas, dentre os quais há a mobilidade de trabalhadores qualificados (trabalhadores com Ensino Superior ou em ocupações técnicas e científicas). Em razão de o conhecimento estar atrelado às pessoas, a transferência desses trabalhadores para outras regiões impacta nas possibilidades e oportunidades de se compartilhar conhecimento. Assim, o objetivo desta tese é avaliar se a mobilidade de trabalhadores qualificados influencia os resultados da inovação no nível regional. A partir dos microdados da Relação Anual de Informações Sociais Identificada (RAIS ID), foi analisada a mobilidade dos trabalhadores formais entre as microrregiões brasileiras em todo o país entre os anos de 2003 e 2008. Os microdados foram inseridos em um banco de dados relacional (PostgreSQL), o que permitiu a criação de indicadores de mobilidade de trabalhadores, construídos para três recortes de trabalhadores: totais, com Ensino Superior e em ocupações técnicas e científicas. Foram calculadas as mobilidades para todas as atividades econômicas e para atividades econômicas selecionadas (Agricultura, Indústria Extrativa e de Transformação), gerando indicadores, a fim de mapear a mobilidade de trabalhadores no Brasil; em seguida, foram realizadas estimações econométricas baseadas na função produção do conhecimento. Entre os principais resultados, observa-se que, em todas as atividades econômicas e ao serem excluídos movimentos de trabalhadores intrarregiões metropolitanas, a entrada de trabalhadores nas microrregiões é benéfica para a inovação. Já para a perda e para a mobilidade bruta de trabalhadores, verifica-se o efeito dos benefícios gerados pela circulação de conhecimento nesses ambientes. Ao se analisar a mobilidade nas atividades econômicas selecionadas, constata-se a importância da mobilidade de trabalhadores qualificados para a inovação, cujo benefício está relacionado com a importância do conhecimento para as atividades inovativas e com a sua exploração nas atividades econômicas selecionadas. O desenvolvimento de capacidades de absorção em determinadas áreas facilita a assimilação e a acumulação de conhecimentos que podem ser derivados da circulação de novos trabalhadores em uma região. / The analysis of the locational factors that have influence over innovation is the key to understand the localization of innovation. The mobility of skilled workers is one of these factors. The mobility of skilled workers can be important for innovation activities because the knowledge, that is an input for innovation, is embodied in people. So when people move to other location the possibilities to share this knowledge are increased. In this way, the aim of this thesis is to evaluate if the mobility of skilled workers can influence the regional innovation in Brazil. The mobility of workers was analyzed with micro-data of formal workers between the micro-regions of Brazil on the years of 2003 to 2008. The micro-data were inserted in an open source relational database (PostgreSQL). The indicators of mobility were created for workers in general, workers with higher education and workers in technical and scientific occupations and economics activities (Agriculture, Extractive and Manufacturing). With this data it was possible to map the mobility of workers in Brazil. Afterwards the knowledge production function framework at the regional level was used to estimate the impact of the mobility on regional innovation. When the mobility of workers was calculated for all activities and excluding mobility within the same metropolitan region, the empirical approach shows that the influx of workers is beneficial for innovation. Furthermore, for the analysis of the outflow and the gross mobility it was possible to notice the benefits of circulation of people and the benefits of knowledge share. For the evaluation of mobility of workers in selected economics activities, it was possible to notice the benefits of mobility of skilled workers for regional innovation. The benefits of circulation of skilled workers are related with the importance of knowledge in innovation activities and also with the possibilities of exploration of knowledge by local agents. Furthermore, the development of absorption capacity in selected areas ease the assimilation and accumulation of new knowledge derived from circulation of new workers in one region.

This dissertation consists of three papers revolving around economics of R&amp / D. The first paper analyzes the determinants of R&amp / D expenditures with specific focus on foreign ownership and spillovers / the second paper studies the impact of R&amp / D on productivity and the third paper analyzes whether conducting R&amp / D enables Turkish manufacturing firms to catch up with sector leaders as far as their productivity levels are concerned. The first contribution of the thesis is the use of newly available data from Turkish Institute of Statistics (Turkstat). Two different surveys are matched at the firm level for the years 2003-2007. The second contribution is the employment of a new methodology: Heckman two-stage procedure with instrumental variables for panel data. The third contribution is collection of qualitative data via interviews with R&amp / D performing firms. Foreign ownership has no statistically significant effect on R&amp / D intensity. Foreign knowledge spillovers exert a negative effect on R&amp / D, but in time their effect becomes positive. R&amp / D subsidies and skill affect R&amp / D intensity positively while size influences it negatively. The effect of R&amp / D and skill on productivity is positive and significant. The effect of R&amp / D on technical efficiency is negative but knowledge spillovers exert a positive effect on technical efficiency.

Organized Industrial Zones (OIZs) are used as a main and important industry policy tool in Turkey. In 2012, the number of OIZs is 263 with 148 active and 115 planned ones. Network between the firms reveal the knowledge spillovers which is inevitable for economic growth of a country for neo-classical economists. In this thesis, existence of intra-OIZ and intra-industry knowledge spillovers in Ankara and Istanbul is tested by the help of an export decision function. As it considers the spatial dependence between the regional units the spatial econometric method is preferred for the analysis. The data set is taken from the &ldquo / Field Research Survey&rdquo / of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (SMEDO). It consists of 62,137 firm level observations from 24 manufacturing industries in 81 provinces between 2004 and 2007. After the cleaning process of the data, 1545 and 1172 observations are left for Ankara and Istanbul, respectively. The results show that the size of the firm (which is proxied by logarithm of total labor), technology (which is proxied by computer usage), organizational proximity and foreign language knowledge of the administrator are the common determinants of export decision for Ankara and Istanbul for both intra-IOZ and intra-industry relations when spatial dependence is not ignored. Besides these variables, in Ankara percentage of high skilled labor is significant while in Istanbul cluster proximity is significant. Moreover, for Ankara while for intra-OIZ relations the spatial effect is one third of the total effect, it is one fourth of the total effect for intra-industry relation. For Istanbul one fourth of the total effect is from spatial effects for both intra-OIZ and intra-industry relations.

Knowledge, learning, and innovation are vital elements in facilitating economic development and growth. Technological change, which is a synonym for generating knowledge, the diffusion thereof, and subsequent application in the marketplace in the form of novel products and processes, i.e. innovations, has a strong effect on the collective wealth of regions and nations. Knowledge spillovers, which are unintended knowledge flows that take place among spatial (geography) and sectoral (industry) units of observation, provide a rationale for diverging growth rates among spatial units, well beyond what might be explained by variations in jurisdictional factor endowments, and thus are of particular interest in this context. Measuring and quantifying the creation and diffusion of knowledge has proven to be a challenging endeavor. One way to capture technical and economically valuable knowledge is by means of patent and patent citation analysis. Following this approach, and utilizing a novel patent database that has been specifically developed for this purpose, the present dissertation investigates the spatio-sectoral patterns of knowledge spillovers in the Canadian economy over the time period 1983 to 2007. The employed research methodology addresses existing limitations in this stream of research, and contributes to the continuing debate regarding the significance of sectoral specialization versus diversity, and local versus non-local knowledge spillovers as the main driver of knowledge formation processes leading to innovation at the sub-regional scale. The findings indicate that knowledge spillovers are localized, and furthermore, that this localization effect has increased over time for both spillovers within a particular industry, as well as between industry sectors. The analysis of micro-geographic industry specific spatio-sectoral knowledge formation processes, and the inquiry into local sectoral knowledge spillover patterns, outlines how regional evolutionary technology trajectories potentially shape the rate and direction of technological change, and consequently influence economic growth, at a particular place.

Knowledge, learning, and innovation are vital elements in facilitating economic development and growth. Technological change, which is a synonym for generating knowledge, the diffusion thereof, and subsequent application in the marketplace in the form of novel products and processes, i.e. innovations, has a strong effect on the collective wealth of regions and nations. Knowledge spillovers, which are unintended knowledge flows that take place among spatial (geography) and sectoral (industry) units of observation, provide a rationale for diverging growth rates among spatial units, well beyond what might be explained by variations in jurisdictional factor endowments, and thus are of particular interest in this context. Measuring and quantifying the creation and diffusion of knowledge has proven to be a challenging endeavor. One way to capture technical and economically valuable knowledge is by means of patent and patent citation analysis. Following this approach, and utilizing a novel patent database that has been specifically developed for this purpose, the present dissertation investigates the spatio-sectoral patterns of knowledge spillovers in the Canadian economy over the time period 1983 to 2007. The employed research methodology addresses existing limitations in this stream of research, and contributes to the continuing debate regarding the significance of sectoral specialization versus diversity, and local versus non-local knowledge spillovers as the main driver of knowledge formation processes leading to innovation at the sub-regional scale. The findings indicate that knowledge spillovers are localized, and furthermore, that this localization effect has increased over time for both spillovers within a particular industry, as well as between industry sectors. The analysis of micro-geographic industry specific spatio-sectoral knowledge formation processes, and the inquiry into local sectoral knowledge spillover patterns, outlines how regional evolutionary technology trajectories potentially shape the rate and direction of technological change, and consequently influence economic growth, at a particular place.