Technological Innovation of Chinese Firms: Indigenous R and D, Foreign Direct Investment, and Markets

What are the factors behind the recent development of industrial technology in China? Does China follow the path of learning technology from outside through direct foreign investment and international trade as other Asian newly industrialized economies, or imitate the U.S. model that develop science and technology within the country based on the strong domestic research capacity? This study examines these questions using a comprehensive research model and a new Chinese patent dataset. The patent statistics in this study are created based on more than 120 thousand granted invention patent abstracts in China between 1985 and 2003. Compared with the Chinese patent data used in prior studies, this dataset distinguishes firm patents from patents awarded to universities and research institutes. The dependent variable for regression analysis is the technological innovation performance of Chinese domestic firms as measured by the number of patents awarded to firms in 30 Chinese provinces from 1989 to 1999. The final panel data for regression analysis were completed with other provincial indicators for the same years on research and development (R and D) expenditures by firms and public institutions, foreign direct investment (FDI), domestic consumption, and foreign exports. The results of count data fixed effect regression approaches show that the efforts of firms, measured by industrial R and D expenditures, spillovers from R and D activities conducted at universities and public institutions in the same region, and demand driven mainly by foreign exports are the most prominent positive factors in the domestic firms technological innovation performance. While the net impact of FDI on domestic firms patenting activity is mostly insignificant and sometimes negative