The Incentives for North-South Transfer of Climate-Mitigation Technologies with Trade in Polluting Goods

The need to transfer climate mitigation technologies towards the developing world has been acknowledged since the beginning of climate negotiations. Little progress has however been made, as shown by Article 10 of the Paris Agreement. One reason is that these technologies could become vital assets to compete on global markets. This paper presents a partial equilibrium model with two regions, the North and the South, and imperfect competition in the international polluting goods market, to analyze the North’s incentives to accept technology transfer. Results crucially depend on the existence of environmental cooperation. When both northern and southern governments set emission quotas non-cooperatively, inducing fewer global emissions is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the North to accept the transfer. In contrast, when governments set quotas cooperatively, the North has no incentive to share its technology either before or after the agreement. Technology transfer commitments may be included in the agreement, but with no effect on global emissions and global surplus. The only impacts are distributional, technology transfers and side payments may be substitute instruments.     

Should the north make unilateral technology transfers to the south?: North–South cooperation and conflicts in responses to global climate change

Whether developed countries should make unilateral technology transfers to developing countries in order to address global environment problems is debatable. This paper discusses the issue in a framework that recognizing nations' joint production of environmental externalities. Unlike the existing literature on unilateral transfers, this paper presents a North–South environmental–economic optimal growth model that allows transfers to mitigate externalities only. The paper derives criteria that would make such transfers feasible. By solving the transfer problem in a modified RICE model [Nordhaus, W.D., Yang, Z., 1996. A regional dynamic general equilibrium model of alternative climate change strategies, Am. Econ. Rev., 86 (4) 741–65], this paper also provides information on the timing and the amount of unilateral transfers from North to South to address potential global warming problem, one major global environmental externality. A policy implication from this study is that moderate employment of unilateral transfers would benefit North along with the world as a whole.     

Intellectual property rights,technology transfer and exports in developing countries

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer through licensing as its mode of supplying the Southern market, based on local IPR policy. Given this decision, the North and South firms engage in Cournot competition in both markets. We find that stronger IPR would enhance technology transfer through licensing and reduce the South firm's marginal production cost, thereby increasing its exports. Welfare in the South would rise (fall) if that country has high (low) absorptive capacity. Excessively strong IPR diminish competition and welfare, however. Adding foreign direct investment as an additional channel of technology transfer sustains these basic messages.     

Intellectual property rights, technology transfer and exports in developing countries

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer through licensing as its mode of supplying the Southern market, based on local IPR policy. Given this decision, the North and South firms engage in Cournot competition in both markets. We find that stronger IPR would enhance technology transfer through licensing and reduce the South firm's marginal production cost, thereby increasing its exports. Welfare in the South would rise (fall) if that country has high (low) absorptive capacity. Excessively strong IPR diminish competition and welfare, however. Adding foreign direct investment as an additional channel of technology transfer sustains these basic messages.     

Technology transfers and the clean development mechanism in a North–South general equilibrium model

This paper analyses the potential welfare gains of introducing a technology transfer from Annex I to non-Annex I in order to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Our analysis is based on a numerical general equilibrium model for a world-economy comprising two regions; North (Annex I) and South (non-Annex I). In a cooperative equilibrium, a technology transfer from the North to the South is clearly desirable from the perspective of a ‘global social planner’, since the welfare gain for the South outweighs the welfare loss for the North. However, if the regions do not cooperate, then the incentives to introduce the technology transfer appear to be relatively weak from the perspective of the North; at least if we allow for Southern abatement in the pre-transfer Nash equilibrium. Finally, by adding the emission reductions associated with the Kyoto agreement, our results show that the technology transfer leads to higher welfare in both regions.     

Unilateral transfer of abatement capital

In a model of global carbon dioxide control, Yang (Yang, Z., 1999. Should the North make unilateral technology transfers to the south? North–South cooperation and conflicts in responses to global climate change. Resource and Energy Economics 21 (1), 67–87.) advocates the unilateral transfer of abatement capital from North to South. It is argued here that such transfers should be contingent on the South's willingness to equiproportionally abate and sequester emissions according to an efficient version of Rose and Stevens' (Rose, A., Stevens, B., 1993. The efficiency and equity of marketable permits of CO₂ emissions. Resource and Energy Economics 15, 117–146.) sovereignty criterion, a straightforward and popular, though not necessarily equitable, burden sharing rule for reducing greenhouse gases on a global scale. Under this program, the North would abate less and preserve a smaller quantity of forests than it would if there were equiproportional reductions in the absence of capital transfers.     

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

This article considers the transfer of cost‐reducing technology in the context of contributions to climate protection. We analyze a two‐period public goods model where later contributions can be based on better information, but delaying the mitigation effort is costly because of irreversible damages. Investments in technology affect the countries' timing of contributing. We show that countries have an incentive to provide cost‐reducing technology as this can lead to an earlier contribution of other countries and can therefore reduce a country's burden of contributing to the public good. Our results provide a rationale for the support of technology sharing initiatives.     

Technology Transfer,Quality Standards,and North–South Trade

This paper examines the economic consequences of technology transfer through licensing in a North–South model of vertical product differentiation, based on a product‐line pricing framework. With its limited technological expertise, the southern firm cannot export to the northern market without purchasing the northern firm's “clean” and low‐cost technology. With North–South cost‐asymmetry, we conclude that the transfer of technology through licensing promotes trade, product variety and improves global welfare. However, without government intervention, the private levels of product quality chosen by firms tend to be lower than the socially optimal levels. This finding helps to explain why developed countries often set quality standards for imported foreign products.     

Environmental Policy and the International Diffusion of Cleaner Energy Technologies

Technology transfer is an important channel of technological change and sustainable development for countries with less innovative ability than technological leaders. This paper studies whether domestic environmental policies affect the inward technology transfer of cleaner innovation from abroad. We focus specifically on the power sector, for its important role in the decarbonization process, by looking at zero-carbon (renewable) and carbon-saving (efficient fossil) technologies for energy production. Using data on cross-country patent applications, we provide evidence that environmental policy contributes to attracting foreign cleaner technology options to OECD markets but not to non-OECD markets. We show that this is due to the nature of the implemented policy instruments. Market-based approaches positively impact technology transfer to both OECD and non-OECD economies, while non-market based approaches have at best only a weak effect in OECD countries. Domestic environmental policies may provide too weak a signal for foreign innovators in countries off the technological frontier. This calls for a strengthening of policy incentives for technology transfer in light of pressing climate change objectives.     

Learning,experience and the dynamics of north–south Trade and technology transfer

This paper examines the dynamics of learning and experience that underlie technology transfer using a North-South trade model with a continuum of goods. Since North is historically more experienced than South, it initially produces the most advanced goods and pays higher wages. Whenever there is a market-driven transfer of technology and production over time, there will be some wage convergence as South gradually gains experience. Nevertheless, wage inequality must persist in the steady state. Product innovation typically increases steady-state wage inequality because new goods are produced in North, and North ultimately learns than South. [F12, O19]     

International intellectual property rights protection and economic growth with costly transfer

This paper develops a product‐cycle model with costly technology transfer, which requires resources from both the North and the South. In the basic model, we show that strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) protection induces a large technology transfer and narrows the North–South wage gap. However, we obtain an ambiguous result regarding the effect on economic growth, which depends crucially on the size of the transfer cost. Although strengthening IPR protection induces a high growth rate when the transfer cost is small, it can induce a low growth rate when the transfer cost is large. In the extended model, in order to examine what factors determine the transfer cost, we consider the situation where the Southern firms may misbehave and the Northern firms incur a cost to monitor them. We show that the degree of investor protection and the degree of morality in developing countries influence the size of the transfer cost, which affects economic growth.     

Endogenous Imitation and Technology Absorption in a Model of North–South Trade

Abstract

This paper considers the transfer of technology from the North to the South that occurs through trade in high-technology goods and explicitly models the ‘reverse-engineering’ process that allows the South to assimilate new technologies. A key finding of this study is that the South's rate of growth is dictated by the size of the country's human capital, which determines its absorptive capacity and its ability to assimilate knowledge from the North. We find that while a Southern country that is poor in human capital can only imitate, Southern countries that possess sufficiently large human capital endowments, beyond a certain threshold, signal the onset of innovation. We also find that the North enjoys a higher rate of innovation and growth with trade than without. North's gains are the highest when it trades with a human-capital ‘poor’ South, because imitation increases South's demand for Northern intermediates. But trade with the Southern countries that are human capital rich (and therefore involved in innovation), dampens their demand for Northern imports, adversely affecting North's growth. The model predicts growth convergence between the North and a South that is well passed the threshold for innovation.     

开放条件下FDI企业转移的影响因素研究———以长三角、珠三角为例

近年来,外商在华投资除继续高速增长外,其区域分布发生了明显变化。在改革开放后的头10年主要集中于广东、福建两省,随着改革开放的进一步深化,外商投资企业开始向长江三角洲地区及其它地区的某些省份转移。在全球金融危机背景下,这种转移有加剧的迹象。本文以长江三角洲和珠江三角洲为例,对FDI在我国地区间转移的原因进行了分析。文章首先比较珠三角和长三角吸引FDI的状况,然后对影响FDI转移到长江三角洲地区的因素进行实证分析,分析表明：珠三角地区土地成本升高加速FDI企业向长三角地区转移,长三角地区基础设施改善促使FDI向本地区转移,地区经济实力增强和生活水平提高增大了地区市场容量,从而促进FDI企业向本地区转移,企业人力资本与技术水平提高对FDI企业向本地区转移起到了积极作用,在此基础上文章提出了促进地区引进FDI政策建议。     

Will Technological Change Save the World? The Rebound Effect in International Transfers of Technology

Technological change and its transfer to developing countries is often portrayed by policy-makers as a critical part of the solution to a resource problem such as climate change, based on the assumption that the transfer of resource-conserving technologies to developing countries will result in reduced use of natural capital by those countries. We demonstrate here, in a capital conversion based model of development, that the free transfer of resource-conserving technologies to developing countries will increase the options available to those countries, but that the way that they expend these options need not be in the direction of conserving resources. This is another example of the potential for a rebound effect to determine ultimate outcomes, here in the context of international technology transfer policy. The transfer of technologies is as likely to simply move developing countries more rapidly down the same development path as it is to alter the choices they make along that path. For this reason, the transfer of resource-conserving technologies, without incentives provided to alter development priorities, may not result in any resource-conservation at all.     

技术预见南方国家视野的困境

随着国家创新实力的增强,中国正在从南方国家向创新型国家演进,处境与当年日本相似。南方国家在开展技术预见时面临知识创新能力相对较弱和知识资产不足等困境,信息不对称可能导致技术预见失去效用。根据信息不对称理论,南方国家在掌握信息内容和时间方面与北方国家存在很大差异。掌握信息比较充分的北方国家处于相对有利地位,而信息比较贫乏的南方国家则处于不利地位,若盲目照搬北方国家的技术预见理论和实践,则可能落入南方国家的视野陷阱。中国创新全球效应日益突出,应在全球创新视野下开展技术预见,排除技术民族主义等干扰。     

PUBLIC INVESTMENT,TAXATION AND TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY

A low‐wage developing economy (South) is interested in accessing and attracting superior technology from a high‐wage developed economy (North) with firms having heterogeneous quality of technology. To improve upon the initial market equilibrium, which shows that relatively inefficient technologies will move to the South, the host government invests in infrastructure financed through taxing the foreign firms. We discuss the problem of existence of such a tax‐transfer mechanism within a balanced budget framework. We argue that such a policy can increase tax revenue as well as instigate the transfer of better quality technology. It turns out that this policy is more likely to be successful when the production concerns high‐value, high‐price products in low‐wage economies. Our results improve upon the conventional strategy of a tax break.     

Political Economy of International Policy on the Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies in Global Climate Change Regime

Global governance on climate change has embraced the transfer of environmentally sound technologies as a crucial means of implementation to meet mitigation and adaptation. During the negotiation toward the Paris Agreement that replaced the Kyoto Protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the negotiation on technology development and transfer experienced contestation between developed and developing countries over policy direction and options. Under this context, why, in which policy options, and how developed and developing countries have clashed have not been fully explored yet in the issue area of climate change. This paper attempts to unpack the negotiations over technology development and transfer as a part of the Paris Agreement by three dimensions of marketisation, privatisation, and de-regulatory approach on the theoretical ground of discursive contestation between neo-liberalism and structuralism. This research, revealing the ground and the range of stretched contestant policy options, will provide a means to discern whether policies and modalities to be adopted to implement the Paris Agreement are skewed toward developed countries or developing countries.     

Tariffs and the adoption of clean technology under asymmetric information

Abstract.  This paper examines the effect of a tariff on the decision of a foreign monopolist to adopt 'clean' technology, which reduces the flow of a negative cross-border externality. The clean technology increases the marginal cost of production relative to the dirty technology, but only the firm knows the extent of the increase. Under complete information, despite its protectionist motivation, the importing country's optimal tariff induces the firm to adopt the clean technology if and only if it is globally efficient to do so. Under incomplete information, this efficiency property is disrupted, and the firm biases its choice in favour of dirty technology. JEL classification: F13, F18     

The Development and Diffusion of Radical Technological Innovation: The Role of Bus Demonstration Projects in Commercializing Fuel Cell Technology

North American, European and Japanese governments have legislated to control Greenhouse Gas emissions and have promoted alternative technology as part of strategies to address climate change. Governments worldwide have sought to encourage adoption of alternative automotive technology by funding demonstrations and in-service trials. Among other initiatives the automotive industry has explored applications of a radical technological innovation—fuel cells—to power a range of vehicles from forklifts to buses. This paper examines the rationale and actions of various stakeholders to facilitate adoption of fuel cell technology in vehicles through a specific market segment—that of fuel cell buses (FCBs)—and explores the progress of FCB projects in North America, Europe and Japan. It examines the role of demonstration projects and highlights the complexity of the relationship between government and developers, and the multifarious and conflicting objectives of industry players that inhibit progress.     

The framework for factors affecting technology transfer for suppliers and buyers of technology in Korea

To gain an ongoing competitive advantage over other firms, a firm must acquire new technology to differentiate itself from others. This paper explores the technology transfer of technology for information technology equipment and establishes a comprehensive framework for the factors which affect on-time completion of technology transfer for suppliers and buyers according to technology transfer agreements. The technology transfer process is divided into the categorical stages that take place. Then, experts’ opinions are analysed through analytic hierarchy process to determine the influential factors affecting on-time completion of technology transfer. The results of this study should provide a basis for firms to evaluate on-time completion of technology transfer and a reference for the technology transfer process for both suppliers and buyers.