Contractual Agreements and International Technology Transfers: The Empirical Studies

In 1958, J.N. Behrman ² published a monograph on the licensing experience of US firms. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study on contractual agreements as a channel for international transfers of technology. In this study, the experience of 207 US firms was analysed and some 4,000 licensing agreements were investigated, about two-thirds of which were between independent firms and one third between affiliated companies. Valuable inform­ ation can be found on the geographical distribution of the agreements, their coverage and structural characteristics, the types of payments involved in both cases, and the typical royalty rate.