During her five years at the World Bank, Harrison
initiated four studies involving multinational
enterprises in four developing countries: Ivory Coast,
Mexico, Morocco and Venezuela. These studies
measure the role of multinational enterprises in
promoting technology transfer; test whether
multinationals push up wages for local workers; and
analyze the validity of the "pollution haven
hypothesis," which states that foreign investors flock
to developing countries to take advantage of lax
environmental standards. Harrison finds no
evidence of pollution havens and shows that
multinationals raise wages for local workers.
However, she finds that technology transfer has
generally been limited to the joint ventures who
receive foreign equity participation