This paper examines whether allocating more research and development (R&D) activities to a country-industry pair with a higher intensity of knowledge flows improves the innovation performance of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We use firm-patent-matched data for Japanese manufacturing MNEs, including data on MNEs’ offshore R&D expenditure and information on patents filed by both parent firms and overseas affiliates. Moreover, as a proxy for the intensity of knowledge flows, we use the eigenvector centrality of each country-industry pair in the global knowledge flow network, utilizing patent citation information.

We find that the quality-adjusted number of patent applications tends to be higher for MNEs that allocate more R&D activities to country-industry pairs that are more central in the network of global knowledge flows. However, we did not find any significant relationship between the country and industry distribution of offshore R&D and the number of patent applications.

本文研究了将更多的研发 (R&D) 活动分配给知识流动强度更高的国家-产业对是否会提高跨国企业 (MNEs) 的创新绩效。我们使用日本制造业跨国公司的公司专利匹配数据，包括跨国公司离岸研发支出的数据以及母公司和海外附属公司提交的专利信息。此外，作为知识流动强度的代理，我们使用全球知识流动网络中每个国家-行业对的特征向量中心性，利用专利引用信息。

我们发现，对于将更多研发活动分配给在全球知识流动网络中更为核心的国家-行业对的跨国公司，经质量调整的专利申请数量往往更高。然而，我们没有发现离岸研发的国家和行业分布与专利申请数量之间存在显着关系。