Do domestic firms benefit from foreign direct investment? Evidence from panel data

Many developing countries now actively solicit foreign investment, offering firms subsidies, tax holidays, and exemptions from import duties. One justification for subsidizing these firms is the so-called spillover of technology from foreign to domestic firms. Using panel data -- following more than 4,000 Venezuelan firms from 1975 through 1989 -- The authors explore two aspects of the effect of foreign direct investment. First, they examine the relative performance to joint ventures and domestic firms. They find that increases in foreign equity participation are strongly correlated with increases in plant productivity. Second, they measure the impact of joint ventures and foreign subsidiaries on plants with no foreign investment. Facing fewer data limitations than in previous studies, they find that foreign investment negatively affects the productivity of domestically owned plants. These results suggest that whatever technology gains occur through foreign investment are captured entirely by joint ventures.Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade and Regional Integration,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Foreign Direct Investment

Willingness-to-Pay for Genetic Attributes in Aquaculture Industries

The genetic make-up of fish stocks is an important factor in aquaculture production. Choice-based conjoint analysis is used to determine importance of genetic improvements to grow-out producers and an estimated willingness-to-pay for selected attributes. Results from a national survey of aquaculture producers, reveal growth rate as the most important attribute.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Focus on the future of clinical care

2006 Annual report of Thomas Jefferson Universit

Optical communication on CubeSats - Enabling the next era in space science

CubeSats are excellent platforms to rapidly perform simple space experiments. Several hundreds of CubeSats have already been successfully launched in the past few years and the number of announced launches grows every year. These platforms provide an easy access to space for universities and organizations which otherwise could not afford it. However, these spacecraft still rely on RF communications, where the spectrum is already crowded and cannot support the growing demand for data transmission to the ground. Lasercom holds the promise to be the solution to this problem, with a potential improvement of several orders of magnitude in the transmission capacity, while keeping a low size, weight and power. Between 2016 and 2017, The Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS), a joint institute of the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, brought together a group of space scientists and lasercom engineers to address the current challenges that this technology faces, in order to enable it to compete with RF and eventually replace it when high-data rate is needed. After two one-week workshops, the working group started developing a report addressing three study cases: low Earth orbit, crosslinks and deep space. This paper presents the main points and conclusions of these KISS workshops.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, Official Final Report of KISS (Keck Institute for Space Studies) workshop on "Optical communication on CubeSats" (http://kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/optcomm/optcomm.html

Orchestrating the future of clinical care

2005 Annual report of Thomas Jefferson University

Spillovers, Foreign Investment, and Export Behavior

Case studies of export behavior suggest that firms who penetrate foreign markets reduce entry costs for other potential exporters, either through learning by doing or through establishing buyer- supplier linkages. We pursue the idea that spillovers associated with one firm's export activity reduce the cost of foreign market access for other firms. We identify two potential sources of spillovers: export activity in general and the specific activities of multinational enterprises. We use a simple model of export behavior to derive a logit specification for the probability a firm exports. Using panel data on Mexican manufacturing plants, we find evidence consistent with spillovers from the export activity of multinational enterprises but not with general export activity.

Collegiate Sport Participation and Student-Athlete Development through the Lens of Emotional Intelligence

A continued debate persists over the place of sport within institutions of higher education. Proponents of sport champion its ability to contribute to a holistic notion of education and develop an array of competencies touted in institutional missions. There is however a dearth of empirical data examining the educational impact of athletic participation at the college level. This paper assessed the educational ability of collegiate sport participation in a unique manner, through the lens of Emotional Intelligence (EI). Student-athletes and students at five NCAA Division III institutions completed online assessments prior to and after the completion of the winter sports seasons. Evidence was produced that participation in a single season of collegiate sport does not develop interpersonal, intrapersonal, and leadership capacities significantly differently from the collegiate experience of students not participating in athletics. Institutions are advised to explore EI interventions as way to maximize the educative potential of sport