Domestic and International Knowledge Spillovers in Manufacturing Industries in South Korea

This paper explores the relationship between the productivity growth and both domestic and international knowledge spillovers in the Korean manufacturing industries, using panel data for 28 industries over the period 1970-2000. To empirically verify the extent of domestic and international knowledge spillovers we have followed endogenous growth approach and wisdom from new international trade theory. We find strong productivity effects from industry's own R and D as well as domestic and foreign knowledge spillovers. International knowledge spillovers transmitted by trade played dominant role in explaining productivity growth in the Korean manufacturing industries during the 1970s and 1980s, but the international knowledge spillovers did not play any significant role in the 1990s. This empirical finding has strong implications for the Korean technology policy as well as for the strict intellectual property rights regime enacted by the WTO.