Innovation in the Global Firm
研究了跨国企业在美国研发投资带来的创新收益如何通过技术转移惠及其海外工厂，发现中位企业20%的回报来自海外，揭示了创新政策成本与收益的空间错位。
How global are the gains from innovation? When firms operate plants in multiple countries, technological improvements developed in one location may be shared with foreign sites for efficiency gain. We develop a model that accounts for such transfer and apply it to measure returns to R&D investment for a panel of US multinationals. Our estimates indicate that innovation increases performance at firm locations beyond the innovating site: the median multinational firm realizes abroad 20% of the return to its US R&D investment, revealing a spatial disconnect between the costs and potential gains of policies that encourage multinationals’ US innovation.