The cross-border flow of research and development(R&D)factors is related to the efficiency with which a country utilizes its rteources and the accumulation of new productive forces.Developed countries have included various innovation rules within regional trade agreements(RTAs),af-fecting the flow of R&D factors by restricting both domestic policies and cooperation methods of partner countries.This needs to be studied systemat-ically.This paper selects 190 RTAs from 74 countries from 1995 to 2019 as a sample to study the system and development trend of innovation rules within RTAs,assesses their impact on the cross-border flow of R&D factors.The empirical results show that the deepening of innovation rules in RTAs has a significant and robust effect on the cross-border flow of R&D factors.Heterogeneity analysis shows that,with the exception of provisions for information dissemination,intellectual property rights,competition policy,technology transfer and cooperation provisions all significantly influ-ence the cross-border flow of R&D factors.Additionally,when compared with North-South RTAs,innovation rules within RTAs have a more pro-nounced impact on the cross-border flow of R&D factors among South-South and North-North members.Testing for moderating effects reveals that technology absorption capacity can enhance the role of innovation rules within RTAs in promoting the cross-border R&D factor flows;the threshold effect test indicates that the impact of innovation rules in RTAs on the cross-border flow of R&D elements exhibits a threshold effect with the techno-logical gap as the threshold.The above conclusions support China's efforts to build an innovative rule system in RTA negotiations and to accelerate the implementation of an innovation-driven strategy.
维普
万方数据