Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Wignaraja, Ganeshan
Author-Email: gwignaraja@adb.org
Author-Workplace-Name: Office of Regional Economic Integration, Asian
	 Development Bank
Title: FDI and Innovation as Drivers of Export Behaviour: Firm-level
	 Evidence from East Asia
Abstract: This paper examines the links between ownership, innovation and 
	 exporting in electronics firms in three late industrializing East Asian 
	 countries (China, Thailand and the Philippines) drawing on recent 
	 developments in applied international trade and innovation and learning. 
	 Technology-based approaches to trade offer a plausible explanation for 
	 firm-level exporting behavior. The econometric results (using probit) 
	 confirm the importance of foreign ownership and innovation in increasing 
	 the probability of exporting in electronics. Higher levels of skills, 
	 managers' education and capital also matter in China as well as 
	 accumulated experience in Thailand. Furthermore, a technology index 
	 composed of technical functions performed by firms emerges as a more 
	 robust indicator of innovation than the R&D to sales ratio. Accordingly, 
	 technological effort in electronics in these countries mostly focuses on 
	 assimilating and using imported technologies rather than formal R&D by 
	 specialized engineers.
Classification-JEL: F23, O31, O32, L63, O57
Keywords: foreign direct investment, innovation, technological capabilities,
	 R&D, firm-level exports, electronics, East Asia, China, Thailand and
	 the Philippines 
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2008
Number: 061
File-URL: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2008/wp2008-061.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2008061