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This study investigates the dynamic interplay between agricultural productivity and technological progress in China, explicitly distinguishing between indigenous innovation and foreign technology transfer — a gap largely unaddressed in prior research. Employing a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) model, the analysis integrates time-series data beginning in the year 1995, when patent registration by Chinese residents began. It focuses on the three core variables of agricultural productivity, domestic technological innovation, and foreign technology inflows. The findings reveal a causal and statistically significant link between agricultural productivity and indigenous technological progress. While foreign technology contributes to the innovation process, its impact appears to be comparatively limited and often mediated through compulsory transfer mechanisms rather than voluntary diffusion. The evidence suggests that China’s initial productivity gains were largely fueled by economic liberalization, which subsequently laid the foundation for local sustained innovation. These results have notable policy implications for emerging economies and underscore the importance of first investing in economic reforms to foster an agricultural transformation that is both enduring and information-driven.

Purpose Countries in Africa have a common goal policy of industrialisation that is expected to be driven by investing in innovation that yields efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the technical efficiency effects arising from innovation inputs including internal R&D, human capital development (HCD), and foreign technology adoption in manufacturing firms in Africa. Design/methodology/approach This study uses cross-sectional firm-level survey data from the 2013 World Bank Enterprise Survey and the linked 2013 Innovation Follow-up Survey. A heteroscedastic half-normal stochastic frontier is used for analysing the technical efficiency effects of innovation inputs of 418 firms. Findings This study reveals that internal R&D, and foreign technology have negative effects on technical efficiency. Notwithstanding, the combination of foreign technology and internal R&D, and foreign technology and HCD reinforce each other’s effects on technical efficiency. Practical implications This study provides evidence that whereas individual innovation inputs may not yield positive efficiency outcomes, the combination of absorptive capacity enhancing inputs comprising internal R&D and HCD with foreign technology is vital for enhancing technical efficiency in manufacturing firms in Africa. This study offers important lessons for managers in manufacturing firms in Africa. Originality/value This study is virtually the first to investigate the relationship between innovation inputs and efficiency in Africa. This study demonstrates that investing in foreign technology in isolation from absorptive capacity enhancing innovation inputs diminishes efficiency. HCD and internal R&D are imperative for building absorptive capacity that enhances efficiency outcomes arising from foreign technology.

The acquisition of technology and its diffusion foster productivity growth. This title uses cross-country and firm level panel data sets to analyze how specific activities'exporting, importing, FDI, joint ventures'impact on productivity performance.

PurposeWhile previous studies find innovation to be an essential driver of export growth, the existing literature has neglected the role of different dimensions of technological innovation in export performance, especially in emerging countries. In particular, much less attention has been provided to investigate how enhancing innovation activities in more technical industries influence the relationship between technological innovation and export. Purpose of this paper is to present a unified framework to empirically investigate the integrated impact of the various technological innovation dimensions on export performance of industrial enterprises in China.Design/methodology/approachUsing a panel dataset of enterprise-level data classified into China’s two-digit capital- and technology-intensive manufacturing industries for the 1998–2016 period and applying system-GMM regressions to control for the problem of endogeneity, the authors empirically investigate the integrated impact of a variety of the dimensions of technological innovation on export.FindingsThe authors find that: (1) Domestic R&D efforts and technology spillovers from foreign investment are critical determinants for capital- and technology-intensive exports. (2) External technology may not automatically contribute to export success whereas the interaction of external technology with domestic skill and expertise is a necessary condition for global competitiveness. (3) There exists complementarity between domestic and foreign innovation efforts when they jointly determine export. (4) Chinese government’s trade and innovation policies have significantly contributed to its export growth. Also, the authors examine that the extent of the effect of innovation on export depends upon the type of industry and it is found to be greater in capital- and technology-intensive industries.Originality/valueThis paper fills the research gap in existing literature by distinguishing between different dimensions of technological innovation and integrating them into a unified framework to empirically investigate their impact on export performance of industrial enterprises in emerging countries. The study provides important insights for policymakers.

Innovation has become a key factor of production, driving and sustaining firms’ productivity and competitiveness. Despite the growing importance attached to innovations, existing studies have produced different results on the factors driving firm-level innovations. This study investigates the factors driving innovations in the service and manufacturing sector firms in Thailand. The study tests proposed hypotheses using cross-sectional data on a sample of 613 firms from the World Bank enterprise survey of 2016. Our empirical results show that specific aspects of the business environment, such as policy instability, legal institutions, corruption, and informal competition, negatively influence non-technological innovations. Contrarily, we find that formal training, foreign technology licenses, research and development have marginal and additionality effects that positively enhance both technological and non-technological innovations. We provide practical implications for firm managers and policymakers in Thailand on adaptive measures to improve the business environment to make it conducive for firm-level innovations.

This study investigates the dynamic interplay between agricultural productivity and technological progress in China, explicitly distinguishing between indigenous innovation and foreign technology transfer - a gap largely unaddressed in prior research. Employing a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) model, the analysis integrates time-series data beginning in the year 1995, when patent registration by Chinese residents began. It focuses on the three core variables of agricultural productivity, domestic technological innovation, and foreign technology inflows. The findings reveal a causal and statistically significant link between agricultural productivity and indigenous technological progress. While foreign technology contributes to the innovation process, its impact appears to be comparatively limited and often mediated through compulsory transfer mechanisms rather than voluntary diffusion. The evidence suggests that China's initial productivity gains were largely fueled by economic liberalization, which subsequently laid the foundation for local sustained innovation. These results have notable policy implications for emerging economies and underscore the importance of first investing in economic reforms to foster an agricultural transformation that is both enduring and information-driven.

In recent years, China’s high-tech industry has made remarkable technological progress, but it has also brought serious environmental pollution, which has aroused great concern about its environmental efficiency. Although foreign technology transfer is considered as important ways for technological progress of the high-tech industry, the existing research on what role foreign technology transfer plays in improving the environmental efficiency of the high-tech industry is still lacking. Based on China’s interprovincial panel data from 2008 to 2017, we evaluated the environmental efficiency of the high-tech industry using the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model with undesirable outputs. We then used the Tobit model to analyze the impact of technology introduction (TI) and foreign direct investment (FDI)—two major types of foreign technology transfer—on the environmental efficiency of the high-tech industry. The results of the super-efficiency SBM model show that the average environmental efficiency of China’s high-tech industry is only 0.4375. Except for Guangdong, Shanghai, and Beijing, most of the provinces in China have low environmental efficiency. The provinces with high environmental efficiency are in the eastern region, whereas the provinces with low environmental efficiency are concentrated in the central and western regions. Tobit regression results confirm the difference in the role of technology import and foreign direct investment in the improvement of environmental efficiency in China’s high-tech industry. Technology introduction has a significant positive impact on environmental efficiency. FDI also promotes environmental efficiency, but it is not statistically significant. These findings were confirmed by a series of robust tests. This study not only deepens our understanding of the environmental efficiency of China’s high-tech industry but also expands the theoretical research on the relationship between technology transfer and environmental efficiency.

This study analyzes the complementarity of foreign technology acquired under license agreements, technology embedded in machinery and equipment and increase in a company’s productive capacity. We use panel data on Brazilian manufacturing companies from the World Bank Surveys. We used the random effects models, estimated by maximum likelihood. The results indicate that foreign technology, embedded technology and increase of productive capacity have a positive and significant impact on labor productivity. The complementarity test reveals that the relationship between the two technologies analyzed is conditionally substitutive and that the relationship between each of these technologies and increase of productive capacity is conditionally complementary.

Purpose>This paper aims to examine whether foreign technology acquisition is complementary to internal technology development in the context of a developing country.Design/methodology/approach>The selection model developed by Heckman (1979) was applied with the balanced panel data of manufacturing enterprises from the Annual Enterprise and Technology Surveys from 2012 to 2016 conducted by the Vietnamese General Statistics Organization.Findings>The results indicate that foreign technology acquisition and internal technology development are complementary innovation options. Particularly, the number of patents granted for manufacturing enterprises positively affects the probability that enterprises acquire foreign technologies. This effect is stronger in cases of high-tech industries than in cases of low-tech industries.Research limitations/implications>Regarding the relationship between internal technology development and foreign technology acquisition, the findings suggest that adoption of foreign technology acquisition and priority in budget allocation for foreign technology acquisition are different in nature and that budget allocation is a more complex issue and may depend on other factors.Practical implications>For developing countries, governments should adopt policies supporting domestic enterprises in acquiring technologies from advanced countries that could complement the locally developed technologies. These supports should focus on the high-tech or high-innovation rate industries.Originality/value>In the context of a developing economy, the complementary effect of internal technology development and foreign technology acquisition is stronger in cases of the high-tech industries than in cases of the low-tech industries.