In this paper, we investigate the economic returns to industrial espionage by linking information from East Germany's foreign intelligence service to sector-specific gaps in total factor productivity (TFP) between West and East Germany. Based on a dataset that comprises the entire flow of information provided by East German informants over the period 1970–1989, we document a significant narrowing of sectoral West-to-East TFP gaps as a result of East Germany's industrial espionage. This central finding holds across a wide range of specifications and is robust to the inclusion of several alternative proxies for technology transfer. We further demonstrate that the economic returns to industrial espionage are primarily driven by relatively few high quality pieces of information and particularly strong in sectors that were closer to the West German technological frontier. Based on our findings, we estimate that the average TFP gap between West and East Germany at the end of the Cold War would have been 6.3 percentage points larger had the East not engaged in industrial espionage.

中文翻译：

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工业间谍与生产力

在本文中，我们通过将东德外国情报服务提供的信息与西德和东德之间的特定部门在总要素生产率（TFP）方面的差距联系起来，研究了工业间谍活动的经济回报。基于包含1970-1989年东德信息人提供的全部信息流的数据集，我们记录了由于东德工业间谍活动而导致的东西方TFP差距显着缩小。这项主要发现涵盖了广泛的规范，并且对于包含若干替代技术转让的代理是有力的。我们进一步证明，工业间谍活动的经济回报主要是由相对较少的高质量信息驱动的，尤其是在更接近西德技术前沿的行业中。根据我们的发现，我们估计，如果东部不从事工业间谍活动，冷战结束时西德与东德之间的平均全要素生产率差距将扩大6.3个百分点。