The process and mechanisms of knowledge transfer are discussed extensively in the innovation literature, but much existing work is based on evidence from leading innovator economies, such as the United States and European countries. Emerging innovator economies are generally understudied; yet, for several reasons, the insights derived from leading innovator economies may not be generalizable to emerging innovator economies. In this dissertation, I explore three classic questions about knowledge transfer in the case of China, one of the world’s fastest-growing emerging innovator economies. Overall, this dissertation sheds light on the barriers of knowledge transfer in a less developed economic and social context and the role of institutions in mitigating these barriers. Also, it enriches our understanding of the drivers of the growth of Chinese innovation.
In the first essay, I study the effect of university research on industrial innovation. Prior research shows that university research can boost local industrial innovation in the United States and Europe, but little is known about whether this relationship holds in China. To examine this question, I leverage a policy shock that was designed solely to improve Chinese universities’ personnel management but turned out to also have boosted university research. Results show that firms in city-industries that have better access to university knowledge produce significantly more patents than their counterparts following this policy. The quality of patents also improves, as indicated by an increase in the average length of patent renewal. Examining the underlying mechanisms, I do not find evidence that patent-based knowledge transfers drive these increases. Instead, person-based transfers are the key drivers of these effects.
In the second essay, I study the peer effects of Chinese star returnees. The return migration of expatriate star scientists is believed to have played a key role in boosting Chinese universities’ research performance, but empirical analysis on this topic remains sparse. Results show that star returnees indeed promote the receiving universities’ total knowledge production but have only a modest spillover effect on their domestic colleagues. The knowledge that star returnees bring to the receiving university does not seem to flow beyond the scope of star returnees’ own teams.
In the third essay, I study the geography of university–industry collaboration exploiting the launch of China’s high-speed rail. While existing research discusses mainly the costs of discovering new knowledge and partners (i.e., the search costs), I employ a novel lens and examine the impact of a reduction in geographic frictions on the costs of building trusts and negotiating contracts (i.e., the transaction costs). Results show that the launch of high-speed rail induces collaboration and this effect is driven mainly by an increase in new partnerships. Moreover, collaborations that are subject to higher transaction costs ex ante are more likely to take place after high-speed rail is present, implying that a reduction in geographic frictions can promote U–I collaboration by lowering transaction costs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/42558 |
| Date | 14 May 2021 |
| Creators | Wang, Ying Sophie |
| Contributors | Furman, Jeffrey L. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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