Apropriabilidade tecnológica e desempenho exportador das firmas Brasileiras : análise preliminar

This paper aims to evaluate the relationship between technological appropriation and export performance of Brazilian industrial firms. The correlation between innovation and exports has been widely presented in the literature. Innovative firms tend to be more export intensive, compared to companies that do not innovate. And both exporting and innovative firms are generally larger, more productive and more intensive in skilled labor. Also, if a firm not only innovates but also appropriates the results of these innovations, this competitiveness gap may become even more significant, since the appropriability can increase market leadership and monopolistic advantages. This study examines the relationship between innovation and exports in Brazil, showing that Brazilian innovative firms tend to export more than non-innovative, confirming the main conclusions of the literature. Next, we discuss the relationship between technological appropriation and export performance of Brazilian innovative firms, comparing the importance of formal (patents, industrial designs and trademarks) and strategic (secret, product complexity and temporal leadership) appropriability methods. Also, we verify if there are causal relationships between these variables.