Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Decrease The Strength Of Global Technology Spillover

Relative to R&D,absorbing technology spillovers has the characteristics of high efficiency,low cost,and low risk.A large number of studies have shown that international trade is an important channel for global technology diffusion,but two problems remain: First,the effect of technological spillovers caused by different types of trade on the technological progress of importing countries may be different.Second,in recent years,the economic policy uncertainty around the world has gradually increased,which has produced important impact on both macroeconomic environment and micro-enterprises' decision.Is the absorption of technology spillovers by importing countries affected by economic policy uncertainty? This article will study the above two points.This article first sorts out relevant domestic and foreign literature and finds that existing research generally believes that trade technology spillovers can promote technological progress in the home country,but the related research is still not detailed enough,and the researches on trade in goods and services are relatively separated;On the other hand,research on the economic policy uncertainty has not been extended to the field of technology spillovers.This paper uses 167,200 data of bilateral trade in goods and services in 20 countries and regions between 1995 and 2016.Based on the extended C&H models of Madsen(2007),carefully constructed the technology spillovers of various types of trade.Taking TFP of importing countries as the dependent variable and technology spillover as the independent variable,this paper empirically studies the differences of the effect intensity of technology spillover of each trade type.Then join the economic policy uncertainty constructed by Baker et al.(2016),empirically studying impact of economic policy uncertainty on spillover intensity in various trade types.The research shows: The technology spillover caused by various types of trade will have a positive and significant impact on the total factor productivity of importing countries.And the technology spillover intensity of trade in service is greater than that of trade in goods.The intensity of trade spillovers also depends on the level of TFP in the importing country.The lower the TFP level,the higher the spillover intensity.After adding economic policy uncertainty,the increase in economic policy uncertainty significantly reduces the intensity of spillovers,but there are significant differences in the impact of uncertain economic policies on different types of trade.In terms of effect intensity,trade in service is still larger than trade in goods,and the coefficient of hightech trade in service is the largest.Further research shows that technology spillovers of common trade types have congestion effects,while technology spillovers of high-tech service trades have cumulative effects;the establishment of a developed stock market is an effective way to eliminate the negative effects of economic policy uncertainty.Finally,this article puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations based on the above conclusions and the actual situation in China.