The Impact of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative on the European Innovation Ecosystem

Date

2025-7

Author

Baştan, Emine Meltem

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This thesis examines the impact of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the European innovation ecosystem, utilising firm-level data from the Community Innovation Survey of 12 EU countries. The analyses investigate the repercussions of the BRI on the R&D-innovation-productivity nexus by following the well-known CDM framework and a novel dataset constructed to proxy the effects of the BRI at country-sector levels. The results indicate that the BRI has a significant impact on the innovative decisions and activities of firms, with particular differentiation noted in their market orientation. The analyses are developed using spatial econometrics techniques, indicating that firms are heavily affected by the impact of the BRI on proximate firms, whether the proximity is defined geographically or economically. These findings suggest that the EU should devise competition policies that focus on the market orientation of firms and not assume that the impact of external shocks is static.

Subject Keywords

Belt and Road Initiative, Innovation Ecosystem, Knowledge Spillovers, Spatial Econometrics, Smart Specialization Strategy

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115183

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis