How Special Is the Special Relationship? Using the Impact of U.S. R&D Spillovers on U.K. Firms as a Test of Technology Sourcing

In order to implement our empirical strategy we need to measure three types of information: the location of firms’ innovative activity, firms’ productivity performance, and the domestic and foreign spillover pools available to companies. We use data from the US Patent Office (USPTO), firm accounting information, and OECD data on industry level R&D expenditure, to measure each of these respectively.