Do Regional Trade Agreements Enhance International Technology Spillovers?

We examine whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) enhance international technology spillovers by using a panel of patent application and citation data for 142 countries/regions during 1990–2006 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We use patent citation data as a proxy for technology spillovers. A gravity-like model is estimated by the negative binomial model and the fixed effects negative binomial (FXNB) model. We find that technology spillovers between two countries/regions measured by patent citations are greater if they are signatories to the same RTA. This finding is quite robust for different estimation techniques. The estimated results from the FXNB model suggest that there is no significant difference in the effects of free trade agreements and customs unions on technology spillovers. We also find that General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) membership and participation in the Information Technology Agreement of WTO facilitate technology spillovers across signatories.