On September 9^th, 2023, Professor Can Huang gave a speech on “Catching-up of Chinese Manufacturing Firms: Role of Diversification, Import and R&D” in the 19th International Symposium on Global Manufacturing and China (GMC) co-organized by the University of Cambridge and Zhejiang University.

(Prof. Huang gave a speech)

Prof. Huang proposed that the accumulation of knowledge and technological capabilities are major drivers of economic catching up of developing countries. Based on this argument, Prof. Huang presented the findings on two recent studies. The first study finds that there is a complementarity between importing and in-house R&D activities in the emerging market. Moreover, this complementary effect would be intensified under several conditions, including high industrial competition, high industrial FDI, technology laggards, and less internationalization experience. The second study uncovers that heterogenous technological regimes is an important antecedent of technological and product diversification. In the meanwhile, tightly coupled technology and product diversification lead to better firm performance.