The impact of technological innovation on export performance: Evidence from a cross-country analysis

This paper explores the relationship between technological innovation and export performance at the national level. This study is based on an analysis of patent and international trade statistics of the major economies, taken from the databases of United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and International Trade Center (ITC) respectively. It employs structure decomposition method to calculate four effects of both patent and export market, namely Share Effect, Structural Effect, Growth Effect and Stagnation Effect. For structure dynamic in product market, the findings show that Share Effect has the most significant and positive influence, but Structural Effect produces negative. The result of patent market structure is similar. Matching these results to connect technology market with export market, it reflects that China has established its technology advantage over some sectors, but its advantage has seldom transformed into the competitiveness of related products in international market yet. Finally, some policy implications for enhancing efficiency of China´s innovation system are addressed in the present study.