Intellectual property rights, R&D expenditures, and high-tech exports in the EU transition economies

Abstract

Several countries have begun to follow export-led growth strategy along with the accelerating liberalization and globalization processes. One of the key goals behind this strategy is to enhance the share of high-tech exports with relatively much higher value added in exports. This study investigates the effect of intellectual property rights and R&D expenditures together with foreign direct investment inflows on high-tech exports of the EU transition economies over the 2000-2016 period through panel data analysis. The methods of this research include systematic and comparative literature analysis, and panel data analysis. The analyses reveal that intellectual property rights and R&D expenditures positively affect high-tech export, while FDI negatively affects high-tech export in the long run.