技术创新对国际贸易的影响【外文翻译】.doc

1、 外文翻译 原文 The effect of technological innovation on international trade Material Source:Economics discussion papers Author:Mrquez-Ramos, Laura Martnez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada International trade theory highlights the importance of technological innovation in explaining a countrys international competitiv

2、eness(Posner 1961; Vernon 1966; Fagerberg 1997).Schumpeter (1944) viewed economic development as a dynamic process deriving from industry and exports, with innovation playing a key role in the development of both. Empirical work linking trade to technological innovation based on a gravity framework

3、show that the effect of technological innovation on exports varies with country characteristics.Loungani et al.(2002)assessed the importance of information links that associate technological innovation with lower communication costs,and stated that the negative effect of physical distance on trade c

4、ould be reduced by reducing the barriers to informational flows.These authors distinguished between developed and developing countries when analysing whether better informational infrastructure can substitute for geographical distance. Their results indicate that the degree of substitution between p

5、hysical and informational distance varies systematically based on country characteristics. The authors tested for a purely linear relationship between informational infrastructure and trade without considering any threshold effects. Fink et al. (2005)analysed the effect of communication costs on bil

6、ateral trade flows by taking into account that this effect might vary with sectoral characteristics. Their results show that cross- country variations in communication costs have a significant effect on international trade. Indeed,they found that lower communication costs foster differentiated good

7、trading to a greater extent than homogeneous good trading.Since information and communication needs are much greater for differentiated goods, trade in these products is likely to be more sensitive to variations in communication costs (Harris 1995). These results may depend on the measure of innovat

8、ion that is used. Indeed, Kuznets (1962)noted the problems with that the lack of appropriate innovation measures may create in economic research related to inventive activity. In recent years, considerable attempts have been made to measure technological innovation across countries.Wakelin (1997)cla

9、ssified different proxies for technological innovation used in the literature and pointed out that the main choice of technological innovation proxies was between using an input to the innovation process,such as Research and Development (RMrquez-Ramos 2007).This index has been constructed using indi

10、cators of a countrys achievements in four dimensions: creation of technology,diffusion of recent innovations, diffusion of old innovations and human skills. These analyses have shown that technological innovation is of great importance to foster exports. We can infer from the above-mentioned results

11、 that,to the extent that technological innovation is associated with lower communication costs,both internally and externally,we should find similar results as those of Fink et al. (2005) in our empirical application using the TAI index. The main aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on

12、 the relationship between technological innovation and international trade. A non-linear relationship between these two variables would indicate that the effect of improved technological innovation on trade could vary according to the technological achievement in countries.Hence,the form of heteroge

13、neity we investigate here is whether a countrys level oftechnological innovation achievement (or ability) affects the relationship between technological innovation and trade.This effect is analysed separately, firstly for developed and developing countries to determine whether other differences in e

14、conomic development also affect the innovation- trade relationship, and secondly for different sectors, in order to pursue the results pioneered by Fink et al. (2005) in a non-linear framework. The aggregated results show that a U-shaped relationship exists between exports and diffusion of old innov

15、ations, whereas an inverted U-shaped relationship is found between exports and diffusion of recent innovations and between exports and human skills.With respect to the more specific results, on the one hand the sectoral results indicate that the effect of the importers TAI on trade is similar for al

16、l categories of goods. However, whereas the effect of the exporters TAI for differentiated goods shows an inverted U-shaped relationship, a U-shaped curve is found for the rest. Hence, while technological innovation improvements seem to have a greater effect on exports of differentiated goods for th

17、e intermediate levels of technological achievements, the effect on exports for referenced and homogeneous goods is found to be more marked for the very high levels of technological achievement. On the other hand, the results of the specific country-groups show that when the importer is a developed c

18、ountry, technological achievement has a positive effect on exports which is magnified for higher levels of technological innovation. Otherwise,when the importer is a developing country, a U-shaped relationship between TAI and trade is found. The importance of our results falls in several areas. Meth

19、odologically speaking, we obtain a model of threshold effects of technological innovation on international trade.In terms of policy conclusions, we find that different levels of technological innovation are associated with different effects on exports in developed and developing countries, as well a

20、s in different sectors, owing to the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between technological innovation and trade. The main message concerning the development strategy to be followed by developing countries is that, according to our findings, countries exports would benefit from hig

21、her levels of technological innovation if they are able to achieve a minimum level of acquisition and transformation capabilities. Hence, investment leading to achieve these thresholds is desirable. The last few decades have witnessed important changes in international trade patterns, with an increa

22、sing number of countries that have become closely linked to one another through international trade and foreign direct investment.Technological innovation plays an important role in this world-wide inter- dependence.Within this framework, international trade theory highlights the importance of techn

23、ological innovation in explaining the international competitiveness of a country (Fagerberg 1997). Classical thinking,which stressed international differences in technology in conjunction with international differences in real wage levels as a source of comparative advantage, dominated trade theory

24、until the appearance of the HeckscherOhlin (HO)theory which centred on resource endowments as the main factor explaining international trade patterns. Nevertheless, technological innovation once again came to the forefront of research into trade with the development of the technology gap (Posner 196

25、1) and the product cycle theories (Vernon 1966). On the one hand and according to Posners assumptions(1961), trade is generated by differences in the rate and nature of innovation. On the other hand, Vernon (1966) places less emphasis on the comparative cost doctrine3 and more on the timing of innov

26、ation. Along these lines, Jones and Bhagwati (1970) considered the way in which the HO model could be applied to Vernons product cycle theory. Vernon argued that developed countries tend to have a comparative advantage in producing those commodities, that are newly developed, and suggested a three-f

27、actor model: capital, “ordinary“ labour,and human skills. Developed countries have a relative abundance of the third factor and,due to the role this factor is assumed to play in the production of new combinations or innovations in particular, developed countries will tend to have a comparative advan

28、tage in producing new commodities at early stages of production. Jones(1970) also highlighted the view that technological innovation is improved because there is “learning-by-doing“. According to this concept, the higher the level of production (or the more“experience“in the techniques gained by usi

29、ng them), the greater the rate at which these techniques become more productive. 译文 技术创新对国际贸易的影响 资料来源 : 经济学研讨会论文 作者： 拉莫斯 马尔克斯劳拉 国际贸易理论强调了在解释一个国家的国际竞争力上技术革新的重要性(波斯纳 1961 年 ； 弗农 1966 年 ； 法格 贝 格 1997).熊彼特 (1944)认识到经济发展作为一个动态进程源自于工业和出口，创新同样的在发展中扮演着一个关键的角色。 有关技术创新实证 的重要框架 表明技术革新对随着一个国家的特点而变化的出口有着深刻的影响。 L

30、oungani et al.(2002)评估了把技术创新与较低的通讯费用这些信息链接的重要 性，并指出物理距离的负面作用可以减少对信息的流动从而减少贸易壁垒。这些作者区分发达国家和发展中国家来分析是否更好的信息基础设施能代替地理距离。他们的研究结果显示 ,物理信息距离之间的取代度基于全国系统的变化特点。作者进行了一个纯粹的信息基础设施和贸易的线性关系的测试而不考虑任何阈值的影响。 Fink et al. (2005)在考虑了这种效用可能随部门特点而转变的基础上，分析了沟通费用对双边贸易流动的影响。他们的结果显示 跨国国家 沟通成本有显著影响到国际贸易。事实上 ,他们发现低价的通讯费用差异商品比

31、同种贸易的交易 程度 更优 。由于信息或通讯所需的要比差异商品大得多，这些产品的贸易在沟通成本变化上很可能更敏感 (哈里斯 1995 年 )。 这些结论可能建立在已经使用的创新的措施。事实上 ,库兹涅茨 (1962 年 )注意到适当的创新措施的缺乏可能建立有关发明活动的经济研究。近年来 ,不同的国家已经在技术创新措施方面有相当大的尝试。 Wakelin(1997)把使用在文献中的技术革新分类成不同的代理，并指出主要选择技术创新代理在使用一个输入对创新的过程中 ,比如研究和开发 (R&D)费用或是在研究部门科学家和工程师的数量，或输出 ,如专利的数量。 在较新的研究中，凯勒 (2004)指出技术

32、创新是一种无形 的 是很难直接测得的而且三个间接的途径测量研发、输入输出 (专利 )和技术创新的影响 (更高的生产率 ) 能使用到的 。技术创新曾被定义为一个国家的“吸纳能力” 能够让信息从境外向实践的过程中通过开发新产品在国际贸易和经济的发展中发挥关键作用。因此，相关指标来衡量技术创新水平的发展 -视为吸收能力 -跨国国家越来越倾向于日益依赖信息技术和人力资本的知识经济。 Mrquez- Ramos et al.(2007)最新的编译了一大数量的指标和变量来测量被作为吸收能力的技术 创新的成果。由于一国的技术成果是非常复杂的，我们很难抓住他们反映在任何单一指标的全部范围等方面的技术和量化技术

33、创新扩散和人文技能。这就是说，已经试图在相对宽泛方式中的去获取技术创新一个测量是技术成就指数，这已经在实证性分析上使用。这个指标把一个国家的成就使用指标构造成四个维度：创造技术、扩散最近的创新、扩散的旧创新和人文技能。这些分析表明 ,技术创新 对提升出口贸易是十分重要的。 我们可以从上述结果推知 ,一定程度上技术创新与降低通讯 费用是联系在一起的，在国内和国外，我们在 Fink et al. (2005)使用 TAI 指标的实证案例可以找到相似的结论。 本文的主要目的是提供找出技术创新和国际贸易之间关系的实践性证据。这两个变量的一个非线性关系表明在贸易上的逐步进步的技术革新的作用会以一个国家的

34、技术成果的不同而不同。因此，我们调查的非均质性研究的形式是是否一个国家技术创新成果 (或能力 )的水平会影响到技术创新和贸易之间的关系。单独研究这个作用，首先研究发展中国家和发达国家去确定是否经济发展中的差别会影 响 其 贸易与创新的关 系，其次是研究不同的部 门，以便去完善Fink et al. (2005)的非线性框架的结果。结果显示，在出口商品和扩散的旧创新之间有一个 U 形的关联存在，然而发现出口商品和较新的创新之间的关系以及出口商品和人文技能之间的关系出现了一个倒 U 形的关系。就更具体的结果 ,一方面部门的结果表明在贸易上出口商 TAI 的影响与各类商品相似。然而，差异商品中出口商

35、的作用显示一个倒 U 形关系，其余的被发现是一个 U 形曲线。因此 ,技术创新成果对中级水平的技术成果的差异商品的出口有一种较大的影响 ,对高水平的技术成果在同类商品上作用比较明显。另一方面 ,对于具体 的国家群的调查结果显示，当进口商是一个发达国家时，被视为高水平的技术创新成果对出口有一个积极的影响。反之，当进口商是一个发展中国家时，在 TAI和贸易之间有一个 U 形关系 存在 。 我们 从 几个方面 探讨 这些 重要结论。在方法上说，我们得到了一个技术创新对国际贸易上的阈值模型。从策略结论的形式上说，我们发现不同水平的技术创新与在发展中国家和发达国家之间不同的作用是密切联系的，同样在不同的

36、领域，由于阈值之间的 关系 存在 从而 影响技术创新和贸易。 根据本研究发现 ,发展中国家应遵循的有关的主要信息发展战略是 ,如果他们能够达到最低限 度的获取和转化能力 ,国家出口将受益于高水平的技术创新。因此 ,投资领域巨头达到这些阈值是可行的。 过去几十年 我们 已经见证了 国际贸易方式上很多重要的转变，越来越多的国家 已经通过国际贸易和国外直接投资与 一个又一个国家紧密的联系在一起。在全球化国际中技术创新扮演着重要的角色。 在这一框架内 ,国际贸易理论强调了在解释 一国 国际竞争力 上 技术创新的重要性 (法格贝格 1997)。 然而，这一次技术创新在 贸易技术的发展差距 研究 (波斯纳 1961)和产品周期理论 (弗农1966)研究上又来到前沿的地位。 一方面 ,根据波斯纳的假设 (1961), 贸易产生于 创新自然差异的 发生率。 另一方面 ,弗农 (1966)不太强调比较费用的学说 而强调 选择创新 的时机 。