We analyze the impacts on host country innovation of three knowledge-containing, inbound flows: imports (including intermediate and capital goods), inward licensing and inward FDI (equity participation of foreign firms). We measure firm-level innovation as the number of new products introduced in the host market and new patents registered by the host-country firms. Our study is the first one to examine the simultaneous impacts of these three inbound flows on host-country firms. We empirically test our dynamic models with panel data of manufacturing firms in Spain (1994–2015). We find positive impacts of all three inward flows, as far as introducing new products to the market is concerned. However, higher equity participation of foreign firms reduces host country patenting. The main implication for host-country firms is that openness to international inflows systematically improves the quality of resource combinations, leading to new products being introduced in the market.

我们分析了三种包含知识的流入对东道国创新的影响：进口（包括中间产品和资本货物），内向许可和内向外国直接投资（外国公司的参股）。我们用在东道国市场上推出的新产品数量和东道国公司注册的新专利数量来衡量公司层面的创新。我们的研究是第一个考察这三种流入对东道国企业的同时影响的研究。我们使用西班牙制造公司（1994–2015）的面板数据对我们的动态模型进行经验检验。就将新产品推向市场而言，我们发现这三种流入均会带来积极影响。但是，外国公司更多的股权参与减少了东道国的专利申请。