The impact of technology transfer and R & D on productivity growth in Taiwanese industry: Microeconometric analysis using plant and firm-level data

This paper conducts a comparative empirical analysis of the impact of R & D spending and purchases of foreign technology on output and productivity in Taiwanese industry. We employ data from two different sources, providing an econometric perspective on this question at two different levels of aggregation. We first conduct empirical analysis using data from the Taiwanese government's industrial census of technological activities at the plant level. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first empirical analysis using these data. We complement these results with analyses of data at the firm level. The results of our regression analyses generally support the conclusion that both R & D spending and purchases of foreign technology have contributed positively to Taiwanese productivity growth. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (2) (2006) 177–192.