KNOWLEDGE APPROPRIABILITY AND DIRECTED TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE. THE SCHUMPETERIAN CREATIVE RESPONSE IN GLOBAL MARKETS

When competition takes place in homogenous product markets between firms based in heterogeneous factor markets, the strategic introduction of biased technological change, directed towards the intensive use of factors that are locally and exclusively cheaper, can increase knowledge appropriability. The appreciation of the strategic direction of technological change widens the role of the Schumpeterian creative response in international trade and enables to grasp the central role of process innovations. The econometric analysis at the industry level of 13 OECD countries from 1995 to 2015 supports the hypotheses that openness to trade stirs the creative response and that process innovations, together with product innovations, account for the trade surplus.