Absorptive Capacity and Technology Spillovers: A Case From Turkey

Abstract

Due to the increase of technological capacity by reverse engineering, learning by doing and imitation effects, the interaction of production units with each other will lead productivity increases through exchanging and utilizing new and more variety of intermediate and capital goods. Departing from the assumption that technology spillovers which emerge as externalities resulting from R&D investments that take place through the inputs of intermediate and capital goods, this study examines the domestic technology spillovers in Turkish manufacturing industry within the framework of absorptive capacity. Considering that the relation between technology spillovers and absorptive capacity may not be linear, threshold regression techniques are applied to manufacturing industry data over the period 1992-2001. The results of the analyses show the existence of domestic technology spillovers through imports in Turkish Manufacturing Industry. The main result of threshold regression analyses is that the efficiency of spillovers are differentiated with respect to the industry specific absorptive capacities.

Keywords

• Technology spillover,absorptive capacity,threshold regression analysis,Turkish manufacturing industry.

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