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Jasjit Singh
Business Economics PhD

Dissertation Chair: Prof. T. Khanna

Innovation and Knowledge Diffusion in the Global Economy

The first part of this dissertation studies two questions regarding the role of multinational firms (MNCs) in knowledge diffusion: (1) How actively do overseas subsidiaries of MNCs exchange knowledge with organizations from their host country? (2) To what extent do these subsidiaries facilitate bi-directional knowledge flow between the MNC home base and the host country? These questions are analyzed using citation data for over half a million patents from 4,400 firms and organizations from six countries. A novel regression framework using choice-based sampling is used to estimate the probability of knowledge flow. The results suggest that there are significant bi-directional knowledge flows between MNCs and their host countries, but MNCs contribute less to host country knowledge than they gain from it. However, the exact pattern varies significantly across countries and sectors, depending on the knowledge-intensity of foreign direct investment.

The second part of this dissertation examines if collaborative networks among individuals explain two patterns of knowledge diffusion: (1) geographic localization of knowledge flows, and (2) easier transmission of knowledge within firms than between firms. Collaborative links among individuals are inferred using a "social proximity graph" constructed from patent collaboration data for more than one million inventors. The existence of a direct or indirect collaborative tie is found to be associated with a greater probability of knowledge flow, with the probability increasing with the directness of the tie. Controlling for collaborative ties significantly reduces the estimated impact of geographic co-location and firm boundaries on the probability of knowledge flow. In fact, conditional on the existence of close collaborative ties, geographical co-location and firm boundaries have no additional effect on the probability of knowledge flow.

The third part of this dissertation analyzes innovation in emerging and newly industrialized economies, with the emphasis being on Asian economies. In particular, I use patent data to study how the overall and sector-level innovative capabilities of Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and China have evolved over the past 30 years. I also study the relative importance of foreign multinationals, business groups, individuals, domestic firms and research institutes in innovation, and the concentration of innovative activity.

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