Have Chinese firms learned from their prior technology in-licensing? An analysis based on patent citations

With the rapid rise of Chinese economy, now ranking as the second largest economy in the world in 2010, many Chinese firms have started taking technological lead in the global market. Nevertheless, whether Chinese firms have learned from their prior in-licensing technologies and accumulated technological capabilities in sustaining their economic growth remains underexplored. This paper aims to fill this void. Using a unique dataset containing the information on licensing for 83 large Chinese firms in the electronic sector during 2000–2004, we find that these firms have successfully learned from the international technologies that they previously licensed-in when subsequent patent citations made by these Chinese licensee firms to their licensed patents are used to identify these successful learners.