"Multinational Companies, Technology Spillovers and Plant Survival: Evidence for Irish Manufacturing"

This paper argues that multinational companies can impact positively on the survival of plants in the host country through technology spillovers. We study this effect empirically by estimating a Cox proportional hazard model on plant level data for Irish manufacturing. Our results show that, ceteris paribus, the presence of multinationals has a life enhancing effect on indigenous plants in high tech sectors only.

Spillovers from foreign firms through worker mobility: An empirical investigation

While there has been a large empirical literature on productivity spillovers from foreign to domestic firms this literature treats the channels through which these spillover effects work as a black box. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. Our results suggest that firms which are run by owners that worked for multinationals in the same industry immediately prior to opening up their own firm have higher productivity growth than other domestic firms. This suggests that these entrepreneurs bring with them some of the knowledge accumulated in the multinational which can be usefully employed in the domestic firm. We do not find any positive effects on firm level productivity if the owner had experience in multinationals in other industries, or received training by multinationals.foreign direct investment, spillovers, worker mobility, training

Foreign ownership, returns to scale and productivity: Evidence from UK manufacturing establishments

This paper focuses on the pattern of returns to scale and productivity growth in UK manufacturing establishments in the electronics and food industries. Our results show that foreign establishments tend to have lower returns to scale than their domestic counterparts. Moreover, foreign acquisition is found to have a negative effect on RTS, especially in the food sector. Finally, establishments in the electronics sector experience a reduction in productivity post acquisition, while plants in the food sector increase productivity.returns to scale, foreign direct investment, acquisitions, productivity

Exchange Rates and Outward Foreign Direct Investment: US FDI in Emerging Economies

The paper investigates the impact of exchange rates on US foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to a sample of 16 emerging market countries using annual panel data for the period 1990-2002. Three separate exchange rate effects are considered: the value of the local currency (a cheaper currency attracts FDI); expected changes in the exchange rate (expected devaluation implies FDI is postponed); and exchange rate volatility (discourages FDI). The results reveal a negative relationship between FDI and more expensive local currency, the expectation of local currency depreciation, and volatile exchange rates. Stable exchange rate management can be important in attracting FDI.exchange rate, FDI, foreign exchange

The Evolution of the Firm Size Distribution and Nationality of Ownerhship

It has recently been shown that the firm size distribution is initially skewed to the right and then evolves over time to become more lognormal, and argued that this is likely due to firms initially facing financial constraints, see Cabral and Mata(2003). We conjecture that, if this is true, then such a pattern should be much less apparent for multinational companies for which financial constraints are generally considered to be lower than non-multinationals. Moreover, such a difference should be re-enforced by the fact that multinationals are less likely to face selection issues. These propositions are confirmed using plant level Irish manufacturing data.

Why Do Within Firm-Product Export Prices Differ across Markets?

In this paper we analyse the relationship between gravity variables and f.o.b. export unit values using Hungarian firm-product-destination data. By taking firm-product level selection into account we show that export unit values increase with distance even for particular firm-product combinations. This cannot be explained by models assuming firm- or even firm-product level selection and constant markups. The differences are important quantitatively; price differences in Hungarian exports between Germany and the US are about 30%. We also show that unit values are positively related to GDP/capita and that there is a weak negative relationship between unit values and market size. We propose two possible explanations: first, firms may export different quality versions of the same product to different markets. Secondly, directly exporting firms may capture part of the markups on transport costs in their f.o.b. prices.export, price, selection, Hungary

Foreign Direct Investment, Access to Finance, and Innovation Activity in Chinese Enterprises

This paper investigates the link between inward FDI and innovation activity in China, using a very comprehensive and recent firm level database. We pay particular attention to the impact of domestic access to finance. Our results show that firms with foreign capital participation or those with good access to domestic bank loans innovate more than others do. We also find that inward FDI at the sectoral level is positively associated with domestic innovative activity only if firms engage in own R&D or if they have good access to domestic finance. However, access to finance only plays a role for private or collectively owned firms, less so for state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, we distinguish the effect of sector level inward FDI into technology transfer and FDI affecting domestic credit opportunities and find that the latter is of very little significance for SOEs and is also independent of their access to finance. By contrast, it is an important channel through which FDI affects the innovation of domestic private and collectively owned enterprises.Innovation, FDI, finance, China

Corruption and productivity : firm-level evidence from the BEEPS survey

Using enterprise data for the economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS, this study examines the effects of corruption on productivity. Corruption is narrowly defined as the occurrence of informal payments to government officials to ease the day-to-day operation of firms. The effects of this"bribe tax"on productivity are compared to the consequences of red tape, which may be understood as imposing a"time tax"on firms. When testing effects in the full sample, only the bribe tax appears to have a negative impact on firm-level productivity, while the effect of the time tax is insignificant. At the same time, unlike similar studies using country-level data, firm level analysis allows a direct test of the"efficient grease"hypothesis by investigating whether corruption may increase productivity by helping reduce the time tax on firms. Results provide no evidence of a trade-off between the time and the bribe taxes, implying that bribing does not emerge as a second-best option to achieve higher productivity by helping circumvent cumbersome bureaucratic requirements. When controlling for EU membership the effects of the bribe tax are more harmful in non-EU countries. This suggests that the surrounding environment influences the way in which firm behaviour affects firm performance. In particular, in countries where corruption is more prevalent and the legal framework is weaker, bribery is more harmful for firm-level productivity.Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Political Economy,Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets