On the Effect of Technological Gap on International Patenting: A Multi-Criteria Approach

This paper tests the effect of technological distance (the difference in technological progress between two countries) on the bilateral technology diffusion, measured by the flow of patent applications. To do so, the PROMETHEE II method is applied in order to construct an annual technological ranking of 18 OECD countries based on a number of technology variables. Then, the normalized estimated scores are used to show empirically that the effect of technological distance on technology diffusion cannot be unambiguously determined and it depends on whether the source country is a low or a high ranking country. High ranking countries export patent applications to high ranking countries, unlike low ranking countries which do not seem to follow this pattern.