Productivity spillovers across countries and industries: new evidence from OECD countries

This paper uses a translog approach to estimate intra- and inter-industry productivity spillovers transmitted through input–output linkages, distinguishing R&D and other (remainder) spillovers. For a panel of 12 OECD countries and 15 manufacturing industries from 1995–2005, first, we find that the estimated elasticity with respect to ‘own’ R&D amounts to 0.25 on average (which would be estimated to be lower if R&D were assumed to be additively separable from other inputs). Second, there are sizeable intra-industry and relatively small inter-industry R&D spillovers. Third, there are significant remainder spillovers, which are mainly of the intra-industry type and substantially amplify idiosyncratic technology shocks.