International Knowledge Flows, Productivity and Growth: Evidence from MNEs in the UK

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Growth Frontiers in International Business

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Abstract

This chapter studies the impact of local and global external knowledge on the total factor productivity of the multinational corporations, located in various UK regions. Total factor productivity matters as both an outcome of innovation and a driver of long-run growth. The chapter distinguishes between high-technology and low-technology industries. It uses the global openness of the regional industry and of the regional economy as proxies for global knowledge flows. The chapter calculates the scale of knowledge-intensive professional services in the firm’s location, defined at the NUTS2 level, to measure the effect of access to complex and tacit knowledge on innovation. The chapter finds evidence of positive cluster effects for both strength in the firm’s own industry and the diversity of the industrial base in the firm’s NUTS2 area. Access to knowledge-intensive professional services had mixed effects.

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Cook, G., Shevtsova, E., Lööf, H., Larijani, P.N. (2017). International Knowledge Flows, Productivity and Growth: Evidence from MNEs in the UK. In: Ibeh, K., Tolentino, P., Janne, O., Liu, X. (eds) Growth Frontiers in International Business. The Academy of International Business. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48851-6_10

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