Tariffs and Innovation in a Schumpeterian Economy with North-South Technology Transfer

37 Pages Posted: 26 Jun 2023

Abstract

This paper develops a North-South quality-ladder model with northern innovative R&D, southern adaptive R&D and imitative R&D to analyze the effects of tariffs on innovation, technology transfer, relative wage and welfare. We find that increasing southern tariff decreases the relative wage between the North and the South permanently, increases the technology transfer rate permanently and decreases the northern innovation rate temporarily. In contrast, increasing northern tariff increases the relative wage permanently, decreases the technology transfer rate permanently and either increases or decreases the northern innovation rate, depending on the size of the North-South labor ratio. Moreover, we calibrate this model to the US-China data to perform a quantitative analysis. We find that imposing tariff in the home country yields welfare gain in itself and yields welfare loss in the foreign country. When both countries impose tariffs simultaneously, they can benefit from the welfare gains.

Keywords: Tariffs, Technology Transfer, Innovation, Foreign Direct Investment, Product Cycles.

Suggested Citation

Ho, Ut Meng, Tariffs and Innovation in a Schumpeterian Economy with North-South Technology Transfer. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4491612 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4491612

Ut Meng Ho (Contact Author)

University of Edinburgh ( email )

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