Foreign Divestment – Crisis or Chance for China’s Innovation Edge? — Holger Görg

Speaker

Holger Görg (Kiel Centre for Globalization; Kiel Institute for the World Economy and University of Kiel)

Abstract

The recent move towards decoupling from China, prompted by the 2018 trade war, has implications for the innovativeness of Chinese firms. Using patent data from the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office, together with comprehensive firm-level data, applying an inverse propensity score re-weighting methodology to deal with selection bias, we estimate changes in thepatenting activity of firms following ownership transition to Chinese owners, linking these changes to the differential taxation incentives offered to foreign investors. Far from crippling innovation, divestment has sparked an increase in patenting – possibly in an effort by the new Chinese owners to reduce their tax burden.

Authors

Haiou Mao (Wuhan University) – Holger Görg (Kiel Centre for Globalization; Kiel Institute for the World Economy and University of Kiel) – Aoife Hanley (Kiel Centre for Globalization; Kiel Institute for the World Economy and University of Kiel) – Guopei Fang (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan)

Room

Virtuall via Gotomeeting
If interested, please send an Email to frank.bickenbach@ifw-kiel.de to receive a Gotomeeting-Link to the seminar.