The Singapore Economic Review

In this paper, we identify the different determinants of the location of research and development (R&D) on foreign direct investment (FDI) in both developed and developing countries. In the case of host developed countries, we find that private R&D investment is positively associated with attracting R&D on FDI. In contrast, in the case of host developing countries, we find that private R&D investment is not significantly associated with attracting R&D FDI, but public R&D induces it. These findings imply that the objective of R&D FDI in developed economies is to advance multinational corporations’ (MNCs) technology further by targeting the local technology market. In contrast, the R&D FDI of MNCs in developing countries is attracted toward localities where the R&D infrastructure is better developed due to public R&D investment. MNCs in developing countries do not direct considerable attention to the R&D activities of the local private sector because their goal is to modify their own technology or products for the local product or export markets in the host countries. Therefore, although one obvious policy implication is the importance of conducting local R&D to attract foreign R&D, the more important factors are to stimulate private R&D further in the case of developed countries and to initiate public R&D first in the case of developing countries.

Based on the stakeholder theory, we posit that firms’ innovation, as a strategic choice, is determined by not only firms’ resources but also their pressures from different stakeholders and relationship with the government. Using a dataset of 3,444 firms in seven ASEAN countries, we find that firms’ innovative outputs are positively influenced by export orientation and fierce competition but restrained by the presence of foreign investment. In addition, while strengthening the relationship with government facilitates, the chance to create some types of innovation, could magnify or dampen the effects of those pressures on firms’ innovation. Our findings have useful implications for the firms’ managers to accumulate and spend resources to build up a strong capacity for innovation. For the governments in ASEAN region, they should focus on improving the institutional quality and providing incentives for foreign investments that only bring advanced technologies and spillover effects.

This study examines the relationship between economic growth and participation in global value chains (GVCs) and demonstrates that the U-shaped nonlinear pattern of GVCs could be more effective than the simple linear pattern of GVCs in terms of economic growth in high- and middle-income economies. The U-shaped nonlinear pattern expresses that an economy decreases foreign dominated GVCs (increases domestic value chains) for building local value chains and then raises the GVCs participation to benefit at a better position in GVCs. This paper investigates a panel of 63 advanced and emerging economies and obtained significant evidence by using systemic quantitative analysis. This research suggests that emerging markets should decrease foreign-dominated GVCs (increase high value-added domestic value chain) and then raise the participation of the GVC for economic growth.

Business models are crucial for explaining firm performance. In practice, managers apply business models to increase firm’s advantage. Particularly, innovative business models solve many economic and social problems in emerging economies. To show the knowledge development in the field, we explored the knowledge network and identified the role of business models in emerging economies.

To examine the primary topics in business model studies, we reviewed the academic literature and applied main path analysis (MPA) to explain the development in this field since 2000. The valid sample of this study comprised 665 papers, and citation information was used in the MPA. We further investigated the role of business models in emerging economies through keyword analysis and case analysis.

The results for the main path indicate that the development of business model studies proceeded in three stages. In general, the literature in business model studies has transitioned from discussing internal and external value to framing business model structures. Specifically, in the latest stage, sustainability in a business model was conceptualized, and studies focused on how a business model can function as a structured model for explaining how various businesses operate. Moreover, studies on emerging economies have noted the importance of sustainable business models and model adaptations for firms in developing countries.

In this study, we aimed to identify the main innovation factors that affect the economic performance of emerging countries. We analyzed data on 21 innovation-related variables in six emerging Asian countries (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) from 1990 to 2008. Using principal component analysis (PCA), we identified six factors that explained up to 90.6% of the variation of all of the variables. Taking the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator clustering approach to variable selection, along with the other classification and estimation methods, we explored the effects of the six identified factors on economic growth. Research and development expenditure and contract enforcement (cost) had negative effects on economic growth, whereas gross enrolment ratio (tertiary), primary-school pupil–teacher ratio (inverse), paved roads and number of registered carrier departures worldwide had positive effects on economic growth.

It is known that global flagships’ capacity and willingness to transfer knowledge in global production networks will affect the knowledge acquisition of local firms. However, the mechanism is not clear enough, or rather scattered, and thus lacks an integrated model for comprehensive conceptualization. Adopting a sample of 105 Chinese firms, we construct an integrated two-stage model to interpret the mechanism of knowledge transfer from global flagships to local firms and find that global flagships’ capacity and willingness to transfer positively impact the knowledge acquired by local firms through the mediation of the knowledge contributed by the global flagships. Organizational distance and local firms’ absorptive capacity affect the knowledge acquired by local firms as well. The influences of the latter two also depend on the different types of ties between global flagships and local firms.

In contrast to the vast literature on verifying the importance of formal R&D activities measured as patent registrations, this paper explores the possibility of not patent but trademark-driven path of latecomer firms’ technological development. The study is motivated by the evidence from the Korean data showing the existence of two groups of sectors where firms in the one group tended to file more trademarks than patents. We find that in the first group of sectors, like food, apparel, and pharmaceuticals, trademarks have been the most applied form of the IPRs with a much larger number of their registrations than patents from the initial stage of development until recently, whereas in the second group of sectors, like electronics and automobiles, the main IPR form has been patents. Regressions on the determinants about this bifurcation find that the trademark groups are those sectors involving more tacit knowledge and/or domestic market orientation associated with slow progress in technological capabilities. The results are important because it implies the existence of alternative path of economic development by the latecomer firms in different sectors, beside the patent-driven path which is already verified in (). Appropriate intellectual property protection and economic growth in countries at different levels of development. Research Policy, 41(2), 358–375, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2011.09.003.

This paper investigates the impact and relationship of international students’ inflow with export and import trade based on the panel data of 28 provinces in China from 2000 to 2016. However, due to the remarkable differences in economic and social development across various regions, the characteristics and patterns of international students’ inflow in different Chinese provinces are significantly large. Our study finds that international students’ inflow will promote the development of the host country’s export and import trade. The results show that international students’ inflow is positive and statistically significant in the Fixed Effect (FE) and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation. This paper empirically investigates the impact of international student inflow on China’s export and import trade. However, the impact of export and import trade of different modes have certain regional differences. Our study proposes that the Chinese government should attach greater importance to the role of international students’ inflow to promote import–export trade. In addition, policymaker needs to design effective strategies and policies to promote export trade from less developed regions, and improve the stability of the sustained growth of export and import trade.

Based on a panel data of 44 countries and 18 industries spanning 14 years, this paper provides a novel insight into the driving force behind the expanding volume of China’s export. We match the global input–output database with micro-level data from Chinese manufacturing firms and find a positive effect of imported producer service inputs on domestic manufacturing exports. Foreign producer service inputs assist domestic firms in entering foreign markets and maintaining foreign relations, thus contributing to their exporting performance. The results confirm the specialization effect and information cost reduction effect led by imported service inputs.

Using World Bank Enterprise Survey data on bribery and patent applications, we try to study the causal linkage between firm level innovation and corruption in India. Specifically, we try to understand if corruption impacts innovation at the firm level. Since we find that innovation and corruption are jointly determined, we propose instrumental variables regression approach to identify this causal effect. We instrument bribery by exogenously determined external audit parameter and then use a recursive bivariate probit model combined with industry-fixed effects to reach our results. Our findings suggest that bribery has an adverse impact on innovation. The results of our study are much in contrast to the existing literature, which largely supports a positive relationship between innovation and corruption.