International M&A activity
Class, the US is the biggest investor in pure research in the world, depending on your source equal to one half of global investments. Naturally, foreign companies may save the capital in the fundamental research phase and invest in those technologies or breakthroughs that have potential to make new markets. Obviously this saves limited dollars and ensures the other countries mitigate research investment risk. This includes agriculture, biotechnology, computer science and engineering, medical, pharmaceutical, etc.
Many people like to tout Japanese engineering in the automobile sector. We know they make very good autos, but they buy the technology once the initial investment has had a breakthrough, save on single investments, then tweak the final product which costs much less to actually deploy and market.
How does basis research affect M&A in the international arena? Disuss.