The present study argues that R&D offshoring is not only a matter of firm's decision as in previous literature, but also has an important industrial externality component. For a sample of manufacturing and services industries in the period 2005–15, I study the externalities coming from R&D offshorers in a given industry and the heterogeneous effects of enterprises' internal knowledge base characteristics. The evidence points to offshoring externality (OE) presenting an inverted U-shape with respect to the firms' innovative processes. However, firms with higher levels of human capital and/or internal R&D investments obtain higher returns coming from the OE. Overall, it seems that a strategy (R&D offshoring) that is highly beneficial for enterprises individually, might be also optimal for the Spanish economy.

本研究认为，研发离岸外包不仅是以往文献中的企业决策问题，而且具有重要的产业外部性成分。对于 2005-15 年期间制造业和服务业的样本，我研究了来自特定行业的研发离岸者的外部性以及企业内部知识库特征的异质效应。证据表明离岸外部性 (OE) 在公司的创新过程方面呈现倒 U 形。然而，人力资本和/或内部研发投资水平较高的公司从 OE 中获得更高的回报。总体而言，似乎对企业个人非常有利的战略（研发离岸外包）也可能是西班牙经济的最佳选择。