Exporting, Capital Investment and Financial Constraints

Many firms cite financial constraints as some of the most important impediments to their investment and growth. Using a unique data set from the Czech Republic this paper investigates the importance of financing constraints in the context of exporters. It finds that exporters are less financially constrained than non-exporters. However, after carefully correcting for possible endogeneity and selection issues, the evidence points to less constrained firms self-selecting into exporting rather than exporting alleviating firms’ financial constraints. The analysis suggests that easing firms’ credit constraints may play an important role in facilitating exporting and that well-developed financial markets that would decrease firms’ cost of external finance may be needed in order to benefit from selling in foreign markets.exporting, cash flow, financial constraints

Host Country’s Governance and the Size of Foreign Investors

This paper tests whether smaller foreign investors are more sensitive to the quality of host country’s governance than larger investors. This may be the case as smaller foreign firms have less bargaining power, undertake more innovative activities and/or are more sensitive to uncertainty and risk. The results lend support to the hypothesis.foreign direct investment, governance, property rights

Trade openness and income – a re-examination

This study uses a new, innovative measure of trade protection and finds that less trade protection is associated with higher income per capita, using data from 131 developed and developing countries.trade restrictiveness, tariff aggregators, income per capita

Ownership concentration, market monitoring and performance: Evidence from the UK, the Czech Republic and Poland

Using data for publicly traded companies from the UK and two transition countries, the Czech Republic and Poland, we analyze the relationship between ownership concentratio and performance while also accounting for the effect of hostile takeover threats on this relationship. Some argue that ownership concentration will improve performance by making the owners more willing or able to monitor managers. Others argue that in the presence of efficient markets, market monitoring (via the threat of hostile takeovers) will discipline the managers. Our results show that concentration is insignificant in explaining performance both in the transition countries, where market monitoring is supposedly weak, and in the UK, where market monitoring is supposedly strong.Ownership concentration, markets for corporate control

Tough Love: Do Czech Suppliers Learn from Their Relationships with Multinationals?

Many countries strive to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) hoping that knowledge brought by multinationals will spill over to domestic industries and increase their productivity. While the empirical studies have cast doubt on the existence of horizontal spillovers from FDI in developing countries, several recent papers have confirmed the presence of vertical spillovers, which take place through contacts between foreign affiliates and their local suppliers. However, the existing studies rely on industry-level proxies for vertical spillovers rather than information on actual relationships between local companies and multinationals. This study goes one step further by employing a unique dataset from the Czech Republic, which allows us to identify local firms supplying multinationals operating in the country. The data suggest that suppliers are different from other firms. They are larger, have a higher capital-labor ratio, pay higher wages and exhibit a higher productivity level. The evidence is suggestive of both high productivity firms having a higher probability of supplying multinationals as well as suppliers learning from their relationships with multinationals.foreign direct investment, technological spillovers, suppliers

Liquidity constraints and linkages with multinationals

Using a unique data set from the Czech Republic for 1994-2003, this study examines the relationship between a firm's liquidity constraints and its supply linkages with multinational corporations (MNCs). The empirical analysis indicates that Czech firms supplying MNCs are less credit constrained than non-suppliers. A closer inspection of the timing of the effect, however, suggests that this result is due to less constrained firms self-selecting into becoming MNC suppliers rather than the benefits derived from the supplying relationship. As recent literature finds that productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) are most likely to take place through contacts between MNCs and their local suppliers, our finding suggests that well-developed financial markets may be needed in order to take full advantage of the benefits associated with FDI inflows. --foreign direct investment,cash flow,liquidity constraints

Liquidity Constraints and Linkages with Multinationals

Using a unique data set from the Czech Republic for 1994-2003, this study examines the relationship between a firm’s liquidity constraints and its supply linkages with multinational corporations (MNCs). The empirical analysis indicates that Czech firms supplying MNCs are less credit constrained than non-suppliers. A closer inspection of the timing of the effect, however, suggests that this result is due to less constrained firms self-selecting into becoming MNC suppliers rather than the benefits derived from the supplying relationship. As recent literature finds that productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) are most likely to take place through contacts between MNCs and their local suppliers, our finding suggests that well-developed financial markets may be needed in order to take full advantage of the benefits associated with FDI inflows.foreign direct investment, cash flow, liquidity constraints

To share or not to share : does local participation matter for spillovers from foreign direct investment?

This paper examines whether the degree of spillovers from foreign direct investment is affected by the foreign ownership share in investment projects. The analysis, based on an unbalanced panel of Romanian firms from 1998-2000, provides evidence consistent with positive intra-sectoral spillovers resulting from fully-owned foreign affiliates but not from projects with joint domestic and foreign ownership. This finding is consistent with literature suggesting that foreign investors tend to put more resources into technology transfer to their wholly-owned projects than to those owned partially. The data also indicate that the presence of partially foreign-owned projects is correlated with higher productivity of domestic firms in upstream industries, suggesting that domestic suppliers benefit from contacts with multinational customers. But the opposite is true for fully-owned foreign affiliates, which appear to have a negative effect on domestic firms in upstream industries. These results are consistent with the observation that foreign investors entering a host country through greenfield projects are less likely to source locally than those engaged in joint ventures or partial acquisitions. They are also in line with the evidence suggesting that fully-owned foreign subsidiaries use newer or more sophisticated technologies than jointly-owned investment projects, and thus may have higher requirements which only a few, if any, domestic suppliers are able to meet.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Economics&Finance,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Knowledge Spillovers and the Timing of Foreign Entry

We analyze how foreign presence affects local ?firm productivity. We relax the standard implicit assumption that spillovers are immediate and permanent. We ?find that spillovers are dynamic. Foreign entry of a majority foreign owned fi?rm has a short run negative effect on the productivity of local competitors, which is more than offset by a longer run positive effect. The entry of minority foreign owned fi?rms has an immediate, though short-lived, positive effect on local suppliers. The entry of majority foreign owned fi?rms also improves the productivity of local suppliers, but the effect materializes later and lasts longer.FDI, spillovers, dynamics, timing

Financing innovation through minority acquisitions

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. This study analyses the financing role of minority equity purchases on innovation activities of US target firms. We provide evidence of increased innovation following minority acquisitions accompanied by cash flows to small, young, most financially constrained target firms that have relatively small patent portfolios prior to acquisition. The effect is not present in the case of minority acquisitions without cash transfers to target firms, or in the case of pre-acquisition relatively large patent portfolio firms, which are less likely to face financial constraints. We also find that R&D expenditures increase following minority acquisitions with cash transfers to target firms. The results are robust to accounting for endogeneity in estimation using matching techniques. Comparable firms, who are targets of announced but failed minority acquisitions, experience no change in their innovation activity. Several sensitivity checks confirm the validity of our results