role of industrial district externalities in export and value added performance evidence from the population of italian firms becchetti l de panizza a and oropallo f 2007 role of industrial district externalities in export and value added performance evidence from the population of italian firms regional studies 41 601 621 the paper tries to shed light on the export and value added performance of industrial districts by integrating information on the population of italian firms from the asia database of the italian statistical institute with balance sheet data for all limited liability companies in selected manufacturing industries the findings show that firms located in industrial districts specialized or not in the leading manufacturing activity of the district export more and have higher added value than firms located elsewhere net of the impact of relevant controls the robustness check undertaken on the agglomeration performance nexus detects as expected a significant relationship between dichotomous district indicators and global and industry specific continuous measures of agglomeration and specializat

the relative economic performance of foreign subsidiaries in uk manufacturing there is now considerable evidence to show that domestically owned firms does have lower levels of labour productivity than foreign owned subsidiaries foss in uk manufacturing industry in explaining these productivity differences most studies refer to the firm specific advantages which multinationals possess allowing them to succeed in foreign environments in fact as barrell and pain 1997 point out if foreign owned assets are no more productive than those that are locally owned the rational for fdi particularly among developed countries disappears superior foreign owned assets are also important from a policy viewpoint in that there is a perception that host countries can benefit from the potential for spillover effects to domestic firms given the importance of firm specific advantages to fdi theory it is surprising that there has been little attempt to directly measure these assets in studies of relative productivity performance

foreign investment and spillover efficiency in an underdeveloped economy evidence from the mexican manufacturing industry abstract in this paper we consider the question whether differences in technical efficiency of mexican plants in part derive from spillover efficiency associated with foreign direct investment we use labour productivity as a measure of technical efficiency and relate this to capital intensity labour quality and scale of production we measure the degree of competition by different concentration indices and the final factor determining efficiency is the presence of foreign subsidiaries if there is a positive relation between efficiency of domestic plants and the foreign participation of various industries we conclude that there is a spillover of technical efficiency the empirical evidence from the study indicates that this is the case

product stereotypes strategy and performance satisfaction the case of chinese exporters does following a product strategy of price leadership result in superior performance satisfaction for chinese exporters does branding products and targeting less developed countries significantly improve chinese exporters satisfaction with export performance results indicate performance satisfaction decreased when chinese firms pursued price leadership product strategies while performance satisfaction increased when chinese exporters used a branding product strategy branding products and targeting other less developed countries with these brands significantly increased performance satisfaction over branding alone

productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment evidence from uk industry level panel data this paper examines intra industry productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in the uk manufacturing sector the empirical analysis uses panel data for 48 uk industries over the period 1991 1995 a major contribution is empirical evidence on spillover effects in situations where the host country is developed the results indicate that the very presence of fdi has a positive spillover impact on the productivity of uk owned firms the analysis also shows that the extent to which local firms benefit from the introduction of advanced technology depends largely on their own technological capabilities

are knowledge spillovers driving the convergence of productivity among firms this study evaluates the impact of knowledge spillovers on the convergence of productivity among firms with the use of patent citation data knowledge spillovers are decomposed into intra and inter industry spillovers and internal knowledge flows the findings from this study suggest that each firm is converging to its own steady state productivity growth rate which is conditional on the firm s r d efforts and the intensity of intra industry spillovers it receives moreover if technology followers and leaders invest equally in r d activities the followers will eventually catch up with the leaders because the former tend to be the ones who receive knowledge spillovers from the latter

extremeness aversion and attribute balance effects in choice consumers often make decisions based on the extremeness of choice alternatives prior research has argued that extremeness aversion is a function of the relational properties of choice alternatives and that the middle option defined such that its attribute values are between the values of the other alternatives is always viewed as the least extreme compromise option the attribute balance hypothesis advanced in this article extends prior research demonstrating that extremeness aversion is also a function of the dispersion of attribute values within each alternative in particular it is argued that an option with equal attribute ratings will be perceived as the compromise alternative even when it is not the middle option data from three studies support this prediction offering converging evidence for the attribute balance effect in different decision contexts theoretical implications of the findings are discussed in the context of the extant extremeness aversion research

foreign influence control and indirect ownership implications for productivity spillovers how does the presence of controlled foreign firms affect the productivity of domestic firms in the same industry we revisit the historical distinction between control and influence by the foreign owner and define controlled foreign firms as those with a foreign ultimate owner holding 50 or more of voting shares connecting insights from new internalization theory with knowledge based views of the mne we posit that controlled foreign firms will generate larger productivity spillovers than non controlled foreign firms we use a firm level panel dataset of 575 844 manufacturing firms 2 343 495 observations across 20 european countries to test our proposition we pay careful attention to how firms are categorized as foreign taking into account both direct and indirect ownership links allowing for indirect ownership turns out to be pivotal there are just as many indirectly controlled foreign firms as foreign firms captured with direct ownership data we find positive horizontal spillovers from controlled foreign firms and zero spillovers from non controlled foreign firms interestingly the strongest positive spillovers come from the indirectly controlled foreign firms the implications of our study extend beyond productivity spillovers to areas such as cross border m as joint ventures mne strategies of legitimation and corporate groups

the internationalization of production by italian industrial districts firms structural and behavioural determinants mariotti s mutinelli m and piscitello l the internationalization of production by italian industrial districts firms structural and behavioural determinants regional studies the paper argues that structural and behavioural determinants combine to influence internationalization of production through foreign direct investment fdi by industrial districts firms as far as the former leadership effects represented by the presence of large firms within the district and porterian effects denoted by the intensity of domestic rivalry positively influence the likelihood that district firms will start internationalize through fdi moreover spillovers induced by the presence of foreign owned multinational corporations positively impact on the district s degree of internationalization provided it has already autonomously developed the ability to grow internationally as far as behavioural features previous export relationships increase the district firms likelihood of undertaking fdi while innovat

competitive consequences of interfirm collaboration how joint ventures shape industry profitability recent international business research on international joint ventures focuses on how firms can use such ventures for knowledge access and learning to enhance their competitiveness thereby increasing competition in the industry by contrast research in industrial organization economics has observed that firms can also use joint ventures in various ways to attenuate competition in this paper we join these two streams of research to investigate the conditions under which joint ventures reduce or enhance competition by empirically testing the effects of different types of joint ventures on industry profitability our results suggest that joint ventures can be pro competitive or anti competitive depending on whether or not they are formed between competing firms represent foreign market entry and operate in relatively concentrated industries our paper shows the importance of adopting a contingent approach to evaluating the competitive implications of joint ventures and it also points to the value of reinvigorating international business research on the competitive context and consequences of interfirm collaboration

foreign direct investment and total factor productivity growth new macro evidence although the role of foreign direct investment fdi in facilitating technology transfer is well known in the literature empirical evidence regarding the effect of fdi on growth is mixed the contradictory results in the literature may be due to the failure to account for endogeneity and for the abortive capacity of the hosting countries using panel data for 49 countries over the period 1974 2008 and the existence of investment promotion agencies in the receiving countries as an instrument our results show that increased fdi stock leads to higher productivity growth we also find a significant positive effect on the interaction between fdi stock and distance to the technological frontier suggesting that the ability of technologically backward countries in absorbing technologies developed at the frontiers increases as more fdi stock is accumulated

patterns of internationalisation of corporate technology location vs home country advantages given the trends towards increasing globalisation of markets and of production the globalisation of technology remains a subject of considerable interest to analysts and policy makers in the 1990s this paper provides some new empirical observations for debate and discussion on the patterns of technological activities of large firms outside their home countries it is based on a systematic analysis of the us patenting activities of 220 of the most internationalised firms in terms of their technology in the 1990s although firms are active outside their home countries in the high technology fields such as computers pharmaceuticals telecommunications image and sound and materials quite a sizeable proportion of their foreign activities are concerned with process and machinery technologies moreover a comparison of the technological advantage of the company at home and the advantage of the location shows that in a large majority of cases firms tend to locate their technology abroad in their core areas where they are strong at home these results suggest that adapting products and processes and materials to suit foreign markets and providing technical support to off shore manufacturing plants remain major factors underlying the internationalisation of technology they are also consistent with the notion that firms are increasingly engaging in small scale activities to monitor and scan new technological developments in centres of excellence in foreign countries within their areas of existing strength however there is little evidence to suggest that even these most internationalised firms routinely go abroad to compensate for their weakness at home

cross sectional estimation of fdi spillovers when fdi is endogenous ols and iv estimates for mexican manufacturing industries cross sectional estimates of foreign direct investment fdi spillovers are biased when the variable capturing the cross industry variation of foreign participation is endogenous to the estimated regression model in this article i introduce an original instrument for this problematic fdi variable capturing the general fdi intensity of manufacturing industries i use this instrument to estimate fdi externalities in a cross section of mexican manufacturing industries the main findings show that in contrast to the common criticism that ordinary least squares ols estimation produces an upward bias in the estimated fdi externality effect for the sample of mexican manufacturing industries ols estimation causes a downward bias controlling for the tendency among foreign manufacturing firms to gravitate towards low productivity industries the instrumental variable estimations provide robust evidence of significantly larger positive fdi spillover effects

is foreign direct investment beneficial for mexico an empirical analysis 1960 2001 summary this paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment fdi on labor productivity growth in mexico using cointegration analysis a dynamic labor productivity function for the 1960 2001 period is estimated that includes inter alia the impact of changes in the stock of private and foreign capital per worker the error correction model ecm estimates suggest that increases in both private lagged and foreign lagged investment per worker have a positive and economically significant effect on the rate of labor productivity growth however after taking into account the growing remittances of profits and dividends there is a marked decrease in the economic effect of foreign capital per worker on the rate of labor productivity growth the paper assesses the short term interactions of the relevant variables via impulse response functions irfs and variance decompositions vdcs based on a decomposition process that does not depend on the ordering of the variables

trade policy reform and performance in manufacturing mexico 1975 88 1 this article examines the impact of the major trade liberalisation that has been introduced in mexico since the mid 1980s on efficiency in the manufacturing sector alternative indicators of efficiency are estimated and changes in these indicators are explained by regression analysis including various measures of the degree of liberalisation the conclusion is that thus far liberalisation has had a positive but relatively weak effect on performance

foreign direct investment exports and imports in mexico this paper analyses the liberalisation of foreign direct investment fdi in mexico since the late 1980s and its relationships with exports and imports such a process has eased the access of multinational corporations mncs to the country which has promoted exports however it has also resulted in a higher import content and the displacement of local firms which has limited mexico s economic development through the balance of payments constraint the analysis is supported by the existence of linkages bidirectional granger causality between exports imports and fdi

competitiveness of regions from an evolutionary perspective boschma r a 2004 competitiveness of regions from an evolutionary perspective regional studies38 993 1006 do regions compete as firms do how does one deal with the fact that regions unlike organizations are entities that do not act does it make sense to talk about the ability of regions to generate new variety this paper aims to address these questions from an evolutionary perspective it is meaningful to talk about regional competitiveness when the region affects the performances of local firms to a considerable degree this is especially true when the competitiveness of a region depends on intangible non tradable assets based on a knowledge and competence base embedded in a particular institutional setting that are reproduced and modified through the actions and repeated interactions of actors although regions are increasingly becoming collective players actively responding to an increasing exposure to extra regional competition the paper explains why there are serious limits in enhancin

foreign investment and technology transfer a simple model abstract this paper develops a model in which international technology transfer through foreign direct investment emerges as an endogenized equilibrium phenomenon resulting from the strategic interaction between subsidiaries of multinational corporations and host country firms the model explicitly recognizes two types of costs the costs to the multinational of transferring technology to its subsidiaries and the learning costs of domestic firms the analysis points to the importance of the learning efforts of host country firms in increasing the rate at which mncs transfer technology the paper also explores some of the reasons why learning investment in host country firms may be suboptimal

a meta analysis of fdi and productivity spillovers in developing countries markdownabstractthis meta analysis reviews the intrasector heterogeneity of productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in 31 developing countries through a larger more comprehensive data set we investigate how the inconsistencies in the reported spillover findings are affected by publication bias characteristics of the data estimation techniques and empirical specification analyzing 1450 spillover estimates from 69 empirical studies published in 1986 2013 our findings suggest that reported fdi spillover estimates are affected by publication bias in combination with model misspecification of the primary studies the bias overstates the genuine underlying meta effect but the meta effect remains economically and statistically significant our results emphasize that spillovers and their sign largely depend systematically on specification characteristics of the primary studies and publication bias publication bias is not caused by best practice choices future research needs to cover more developing countries and to investigate not only whether spillovers occur but also to explore inside the black box of how spillovers actually emerge

intra and inter industry externalities from foreign direct investment in the mexican manufacturing sector new evidence from mexican regions summary this paper presents new empirical evidence on externalities from foreign direct investment fdi in several mexican regions in the early 1990s the main findings are threefold first the presence of fdi creates negative externalities within industries and positive externalities between industries through backward linkages second fdi externalities are stimulated by large technological differences between fdi and mexican firms and by geographic concentration of industries third we identify a substantial level of regional heterogeneity of the externality impact of fdi in line with the notion that fdi may have contributed to processes of changing regional prosperity under trade liberalization the findings also imply that maquiladora firms in the border states are generating positive externalities

effects of inward investment on outward investment the venture capital industry worldwide 1985 2007 we identify inward investment as an important impetus to outward investment supplemental to the impetuses depicted in conventional internationalization frameworks by incorporating both the spillover and competition effects of foreign entrants we develop an integrated framework of the inward outward investment relationship for different investment modes and different home country and host country pairs our analysis of venture capital vc investments worldwide from 1985 to 2007 shows a positive spillover effect on outward investment for inward co investments and a negative competition effect on outward investment for inward standalone investments we find the strongest effects when the host country is a laggard in the vc industry and the home country is a leader

global investments and regional development trajectories the missing links abstractglobal investments and regional development trajectories the missing links regional studies regional economic development has been long conceptualized as a non linear interactive and socially embedded process these features were traditionally regarded as spatially mediated and highly localized however unprecedentedly fast technological change coupled with the intensification of global economic integration has spurred the need to place regional development in a truly open and interdependent framework despite substantial progress in the academic literature rethinking regional development in this perspective still presents a number of challenges in terms of concepts empirical evidence and policy approaches following an interdisciplinary assessment of how openness and connectivity proxied by one of the many cross border flows i e global investments interact with regional economic development trajectories this paper presents a picture of the geography of foreign investments from and

regional innovation and spillover effects of foreign direct investment in china a threshold approach huang l liu x and xu l regional innovation and spillover effects of foreign direct investment in china a threshold approach regional studies using a data set on twenty nine chinese provinces for the period 1985 2008 this paper establishes a threshold model to analyse the relationship between spillover effects of foreign direct investment fdi and regional innovation in china there is clear evidence of double threshold effects of regional innovation on productivity spillovers from fdi specifically only when the level of regional innovation reaches the minimum innovation threshold will fdi in the region begin to produce positive productivity spillovers furthermore positive productivity spillovers from fdi will be substantial only when the level of regional innovation attains a higher threshold the double threshold divides chinese provinces into three super regions in terms of innovation with most provinces positioned within the middle level innovation super region policy implications are di

when and where does foreign direct investment generate positive spillovers a meta analysis local firms may attract productivity spillovers from foreign investors yet these vary with local firms awareness capability and motivation to react to foreign entry in consequence spillovers vary across countries at different levels of economic development we apply competitive dynamics theory to analyze these contextual moderators of spillovers and test hypotheses thus derived in a meta analysis of the empirical literature on spillovers our analysis suggests a curvilinear relationship between spillovers and the host country s level of development in terms of income institutional framework and human capital

externalities and technology transfer through multinational corporations a theoretical analysis abstract this paper examines the optimal behavior of a multinational firm s subsidiary in a host country when learning of its production techniques by its native rivals occurs in a dynamic framework it is shown among other things that a it is worthwhile for the subsidiary to import better technology from its parent firm and that b such technology transfer may not benefit the firms of the host country despite their learning while the host country as a whole does benefit

evaluating the impact of investment incentives the case of italy s law 488 1992 abstract italy s law 488 1992 allows firms willing to invest in lagging areas to receive a public subsidy by comparing subsidized firms with firms with rejected applications this paper evaluates whether the program made investments possible that otherwise would not have been made we find evidence that financed firms brought forward investment projects originally planned for the post intervention period to take advantage of the incentives we also find some support that subsidized firms may have taken some of the investment opportunities that unsubsidized firms would have exploited in the absence of incentives

foreign direct investment and host country productivity the american automotive component industry in the 1980s although several studies have shown that inward foreign direct investment fdi often leads to greater host country productivity researchers have yet to determine the relative importance of direct technology transfer and competitive pressure to assess the relative importance of the two channels we examine the us auto component industry between 1979 and 1991 during this period japanese automobile assemblers began to produce vehicles in north america and began to purchase inputs from us auto component manufacturers those us manufacturers that sold components to japanese transplants would be the direct recipients of any technologies transferred from the japanese although we find that the direct investment by japanese assemblers was associated with overall productivity improvement in the us auto component industry we find little evidence of direct technology transfer the productivity growth of us suppliers affiliated with japanese assemblers was no greater than that of other non affiliated us suppliers further we find that the japanese assemblers tended to purchase components from less productive us suppliers and moreover that low productivity suppliers that sold goods to japanese assemblers had a higher survival rate than low productivity suppliers that did not sell to japanese firms the results suggest that increased competitive pressure in the auto sector was the main cause of overall productivity improvement at least during the initial stages of fdi of the 1980s

simultaneous equations models of the structure performance paradigm abstract this paper is concerned with determining the dimension of the simultaneous equations model surrounding the basic profits concentration relationship a very general model is considered and then simplified using a simple test for exogeneity and it is concluded that the model is nonlinear in concentration and that simultaneous interaction occurs between profits and foreign competition variables

the impact of inward fdi on the performance of chinese manufacturing firms recent years have witnessed the emergence of china as one of the most important destinations for foreign direct investment fdi which reached us 403 98 billion by the end of 1999 moftec 2000 china is now the largest recipient of fdi in the developing world however the amount of fdi will underestimate its overall consequences if spillover effects are significant murphy 1992 o malley 1994 buckwalter 1995 this study investigates the impact of fdi on the performance of chinese locally owned firms in manufacturing

growth technology transfer and the long run theory of international capital movements abstract this paper provides a model of growth and international capital movements technology is assumed to be transferred via international capital movements from the developed north to the developing south it is shown that when the south shifts from autarky to free capital mobility its steady state growth rate of per capita income rises also under free capital movements an increase in the autarkic growth rate of human capital and or technological diffusion rate in the south lowers the steady state income gap between the north and the south

mode size and location of foreign direct investments and industry markups abstract several studies find that inward foreign direct investment fdi raises host industries competition and productivity using aggregate fdi measures the monetary flows or the change in the industries foreign production share yet fdi flows are composed of many individual heterogeneous investments reflecting this heterogeneity i ask how the average traits of the individual investments that constitute the fdi flow further affect the host while the results show that inward fdi does heighten competition for us manufacturing industries in 1987 1991 price cost markups fall even more when foreign investments locate further away from incumbent industry which is consistent with endogenous location choice

is the relationship between inward fdi and spillover effects linear an empirical examination of the case of china this paper finds evidence for the coexistence within chinese manufacturing industry of both curvilinear and linear relationships between inward foreign direct investment fdi and the productivity of locally owned enterprises loes this complexity of spillover effects challenges the laissez faire view that all inward fdi into all types of domestic industry is equally valuable in terms of productivity spillover benefits our findings suggest that inward fdi into china leads either to spillovers that decline beyond a critical point or to effects that continue linearly depending on the ownership of foreign investors and the technological characteristics of the industry concerned our analysis yields original insights into the complex pattern of spillover effects from fdi into china and deeper understanding of its possible causes

foreign direct investments environmental externalities and capital segmentation in a rural economy this paper examines the possible effects of external investment inflows on the development of local rural economies taking into account two recurrent features of many developing countries capital market segmentation and environmental externalities to investigate this issue we examine a model with two sectors the local sector and the external sector physical capital accumulation in the latter sector is driven by foreign direct investments while in the former sector it follows a solow type accumulation mechanism we assume that the production activity of the external sector damages the environment while the local sector relies on natural resources in this context we give the conditions under which capital inflows can promote diversification of host economy while improving welfare of local populations if these conditions are not satisfied external investments fuel a welfare reducing process for the local community and a self enforcing growth of the external sector at the expense of the local one

foreign direct investment pollution and economic growth evidence from malaysia the bounds test developed by pesaran et al 2001 is applied to examine the existence of a long run relationship between foreign direct investment fdi inflows pollution and output of malaysia granger causality tests are also utilized to test for the presence of the short run and long run causal relationship between these variables both fdi inflows and pollution have short run causal relationship on output output only has long run causal relationship on fdi inflows

mutual productivity spillovers between foreign and local firms in china the existing literature treats advanced technology sourcing as the only cause of reverse productivity spillovers from local to foreign firms and implies that mutual spillovers between foreign and local firms can only happen in the developed world this paper argues that the diffusion of indigenous technology and local knowledge helps the productivity enhancement of multinationals so that there can be mutual spillovers even in a developing country the results from a large sample firm level econometric analysis and a comparative case study of seven companies in chinese manufacturing support this new argument as mutual spillovers are identified between local chinese firms and overseas chinese or oecd invested firms

dynamics of export specialization in the regions of the italian mezzogiorno persistence and change guerrieri p and iammarino s 2007 dynamics of export specialization in the regions of the italian mezzogiorno persistence and change regional studies 41 933 947 during the 1980s and 1990s the italian southern economy displayed signs of transformation in production and export structures accompanied by sharp geographical differentiation debate on these changes mainly spurred by growing international pressure has given rise to different views and expectations on the opportunities for endogenous growth on the italian periphery the aim of this paper is to contribute to this ongoing debate by looking at the evolution of sectoral export specialization patterns i e relative comparative advantage structures in the mezzogiorno regions in the period 1985 2000 focusing on inter provincial comparisons the analysis concentrates on the extent of persistence versus change in the evolution of provincial specialization patterns shedding light on the relationship between export structure and performance

linking fdi motivation and host economy productivity effects conceptual and empirical analysis we develop a taxonomy that relates foreign direct investment fdi motivation technology and cost based to its anticipated effects on host countries domestic productivity we then empirically examine the effects of fdi into the united kingdom on domestic productivity and find that different types of fdi have markedly different productivity spillover effects which are consistent with the conceptual analysis the uk gains substantially only from inward fdi motivated by a strong technology based ownership advantage as theory predicts inward fdi motivated by technology sourcing considerations leads to no productivity spillovers

perspectives on multinational enterprises in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes play a pivotal role in the development of many emerging economies in consequence they became the focus of scholarly research by economists and policy analysts in contrast international business scholars have been comparatively uninterested in analysing this role of mnes yet they could make important contributions to these debates first studies taking the individual firms as starting point would enhance understanding of the interaction between mnes and the local environment second theories and research methodologies developed in international business research could provide new insights into the dynamics of mnes in emerging economies the objective of this paper is to motivate more international business scholars to engage in research on positive and negative spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economy societies to advance this research agenda scholars need to analyse the specific activities and capabilities of the firms involved and the impact of fdi on the broader social and environmental context for management this agenda raises the ethical question to what extent ought businesses to care about their local stakeholders

small and medium sized enterprises technology and globalization introduction to a special issue on small and medium sized enterprises in the global economy this paper is an introduction to the special issue on small and medium sized enterprises in the global economy the paper gives a broad outline of globalization the role of technology and examines the role that small and medium sized enterprises play in the global economy we focus on foreign direct investment of small technology based firms and how their innovations diffuse into the global economy

fdi trade and spillover efficiency evidence from china s manufacturing sector using firm data from the 1995 third industrial census of china this paper finds that the presence of foreign ownership has a positive and significant effect on domestic firms productivity moreover trading with more advanced countries helps china gain access to new technology and information which improves its productivity and enables it to compete in international markets it is found that china s imports from oecd and the four asian tigers and exports to oecd have positive effects on domestic firms productivity by dividing industries into high technology gap and low technology gap groups it is found that the spillover effects of fdi are larger for the low technology gap group than for the high technology gap group however the estimation results of the trade induced technology spillover effect support the technology gap learning theory and the significance of importing appropriate technology

spillovers from foreign direct investment within or between industries this paper contributes an estimation framework to measure both technological and linkage externalities from foreign direct investment fdi empirical research dealt mainly with intra industry spillovers from fdi with restrictive treatment of inter industry effects until recently however as optimal organization of the multinational corporation mnc involves minimization of profit losses due to leakage of technical information to competitors host country firms within the mnc s sector experience limited productivity gains ensuing fdi host country producers in other sectors may benefit for example mncs transfer knowledge to local downstream clients or outsource to local upstream suppliers hence fdi substitutes within sector domestic investment but complements it across sectors the net impact on aggregate capital formation by host country producers hinges on the interaction between linkages and spillovers estimations based on the colombian manufacturing census yield the sectoral pattern of fdi spillovers displaying knowledge propagation between but not within industries the findings reveal outsourcing relationships of mncs with local upstream suppliers as the channel of diffusion

do spillover benefits grow with rising foreign direct investment an empirical examination of the case of china using data from the chinese manufacturing industry for 2001 this article examines the impacts of foreign presence on the performance of locally owned chinese firms our key result supports a curvilinear functional form foreign penetration rates in excess of just about two thirds of industrial capital are associated with declining spillover benefits indicating the dominance of negative spillovers the curvilinear relationship is found to be particularly strong in labour intensive industries contrasting with a standard linear relationship in technology intensive sectors the finding of the complexity of spillover effects challenges the laissez faire view that the more inward foreign direct investment fdi the better and that inward fdi into all types of domestic industry is equally valuable in terms of performance benefits our findings argue for policy measures to strengthen domestically owned chinese industry to provide effective competition to foreign firms and to absorb the benefits from spill

choice based on reasons the case of attraction and compromise effects building on previous research this article proposes that choice behavior under preference uncertainty may be easier to explain by assuming that consumers select the alternative supported by the best reasons this approach provides an explanation for the so called attraction effect and leads to the prediction of a compromise effect consistent with the hypotheses the results indicate that 1 brands tend to gain share when they become compromise alternatives in a choice set 2 attraction and compromise effects tend to be stronger among subjects who expect to justify their decisions to others and 3 selections of dominating and compromise brands are associated with more elaborate and difficult decisions

a technique for obtaining improved proxy estimates of minimum optimal scale in the field of industrial organization the concept of economies of scale is of fundamental importance large minimum optimum scale mos 1 and significant unit cost reduction up to mos size together suggest the possibility of high industry concentration and significant barriers to entry 2 however a recent paper in this review caves shirazi and porter 1975 has pointed to the severe difficulties encountered by students of industrial organization in empirical analyses of these relationships the chief problem is that objective measures of mos i e engineering estimates 3 and of the cost disadvantage of suboptimal scale production are available for only a small minority of all u s manufacturing industries at say the 4 digit level since there are more than 400 such industries it is most unlikely that there ever will be much change in this situation this means that in large scale cross section statistical analyses various proxies for scale economy influences must be used this is also the case in other fields of economics in which the influence of industrial organization has been recently felt in the investigation of sectoral patterns of direct foreign investment and the commodity composition of international trade for example unfortunately little has been achieved in terms of the development of reliable proxies for scale economies or minimum optimal scale this relative poverty in the data seriously jeopardizes the empirical analyses undertaken in all the above mentioned fields the present paper is a first step at overcoming this deficiency it offers a critical analysis of the proxies currently in vogue and it suggests an alternative technique for generating estimates of mos that appear to be substantially superior to them

learning through the international joint venture lessons from the experience of china s automotive sector this study explores why international joint ventures ijvs based on the global south may meet with only partial success in nurturing local technological capability the experience of china s passenger vehicle sector demonstrates that in the existence of a substantial technological capability gap between alliance partners the ijv arrangement is likely to create a passive learning mode and learners using this ijv arrangement may be able to strengthen their production capability but leaving their project execution and innovation capabilities largely undeveloped

the mnc as an agent of change for host country institutions fdi and corruption most empirical research examines how the institutional environment of corruption shapes the behavior of multinational corporations mncs in this study we would like to highlight the other side of the picture how the presence of mncs may shape the institutional environment of corruption over time we propose three avenues through which the mncs may have an impact on its host institutions regulatory pressure effect demonstration effect and professionalization effect based on extensive data on foreign direct investment and corruption for a large sample of countries over the last 30 years the empirical results are generally consistent with our hypothesis such findings provide a glimmer of hope for the future of the host country where corruption is prevalent

firm size and foreign operations of multinationals the standard literature on multinationals emphasizes the importance of firm size in explaining foreign direct investment a typical statement for example by caves is that t he relation between direct investment and firm size with other factors held constant has been established statistically 1974 p 280 however descriptions of the role of firm size are often ambiguous as pointed out by hufbauer 1975 and swedenborg 1979 such descriptions do not make a clear distinction between the probability or likelihood that a firm would be a foreign investor and the extent of such investment or as expressed by swedenborg a firm s propensity to operate abroad the share of its production carried on outside its home country a study by horst 1972 which has become the basis for most statements about the importance of firm size dealt only with the probability that a firm would be a foreign investor or more specifically the probability that it would meet the criteria for being considered a multinational firm according to the definition used in the harvard studies including that of having a certain number of overseas operations cf vernon 197 1

united arab emirates fdi outlook fdi is important in building a sustainable and diversified knowledge based uae economy the stock of fdi grew at an average annual growth rate of 45 3 percent over the past decade reaching us 95 billion or nearly 27 percent of gdp in 2012 fdi flows have not recovered from the global financial crises most fdi stock is concentrated in finance construction and real estate recent greenfield fdi is concentrated in construction while more than half of top m a deals took place in finance transportation communications and utilities the list of top oecd home countries for fdi flows to the uae include italy germany chile united kingdom luxembourg france united states and belgium though uae investment policy limits foreign investment and reduces competition the government has undertaken reforms and contracted investment treaties that have encouraged investment efforts are under way to speed up the ratification of a new foreign investment law which removes several of the current legal barriers to fdi and offers foreign investors similar rights to those of uae nationals the uae has high fdi potential with plenty of room for improving fdi performance and benefiting the economy

causality between foreign investment and spillover efficiency while there is considerable evidence on the observed linkage between foreign investment and technical efficiency of the developing countries the question of causality between them has not been investigated this paper re examines the relationship between foreign direct investment and technical efficiency in mexico brazil chile singapore and zambia using granger causality tests the results suggest that foreign direct investment and labour productivity are causally independent variables however capital formation of the host country is found to exert causal influence on foreign investment

the internationalization of new and small firms a resource based view abstract this paper seeks to enhance understanding of the internationalization of small and medium sized enterprises smes the study focuses upon the following issues can the characteristics of principal founders businesses and the external environment at one point in time be used to explain at a later date whether a firm is still an exporter or a nonexporter whether exporting firms are larger in size than nonexporting firms whether exporting firms report superior performance than nonexporting firms and whether exporting firms are more likely to survive than nonexporting firms to address these questions this study draws upon a sample of 621 manufacturing construction and services businesses located in twelve contrasting environments in great britain surveyed first in 1990 91 and then re interviewed in 1997 a resource based view is reviewed to identify the range of factors encouraging some owner managed smes to enter export markets four categories of human and financial capital are examined general human capital resources the principal founder s management know how the principal founder s specific industry know how and a principal founder s ability to obtain financial resources that can act as a buffer against random shocks variables relating to resource availability in the external environment were also collected and considered control variables previous studies have highlighted substantial industry differences in the propensity for businesses to enter export markets as well as to survive the principal industrial activity of each business in 1990 91 was therefore considered a control variable variables collected during the 1990 91 survey were selected to explain variations in the propensity to export reported by surviving independent firms in 1997 after elimination of missing values the working sample was reduced to 116 independent firms for this study 86 nonexporters and 30 exporters in 1997 in addition the 21 variables were selected to explain variations in business size in 1997 profit performance relative to competitors reported in 1997 changes in employment over the 1990 91 to 1997 period and business survival over the 1990 91 to 1997 period 213 survivors and 395 nonsurvivors multivariate statistical analysis confirmed that previous experience of selling goods or services abroad is a key influence encouraging firms to export businesses with older principal founders with more resources denser information and contact networks and considerable management know how are significantly more likely to be exporters further businesses with principal founders that had considerable industry specific knowledge are markedly more likely to be exporters businesses principally engaged in the service sectors and those located in urban areas are significantly less likely to be exporters a key finding of this study is that the explanatory variables significantly associated with the propensity to export sales abroad are not the same as those significantly associated with selected size and performance measures the resource based explanatory variables selected fail to significantly detect employment growing firms over the 1990 91 to 1997 period they also fail to significantly distinguish surviving independent firms from nonsurviving firms results from this study will provide policy makers and practitioners with additional insights into the key resource based factors associated with the decision by new and small independent firms to export sales abroad practitioners and policy makers can focus upon the characteristics of principal founders businesses and the external environment to predict the subsequent propensity of an independent firm to be an exporter policy makers and practitioners who want more new and small firms to export outside their local areas may prefer to target their resources and assistance to the relatively smaller proportion of firms that have the business and principal founder profiles that are significantly associated with a firm being an exporter

accounting for sources of fdi technology spillovers evidence from china using a set of panel data of 11 324 firms in china from 1996 to 1999 the paper finds that positive technology spillovers from fies to domestic firms occur through tangible assets rather than intangible assets through domestically consumed products rather than exported products through traditional products rather than new products and through fies employing unskilled workers rather than fies employing skilled workers fies are found to generate negative spillovers through exports and through employment of skilled workers

location and the multinational enterprise in the early development of the international business field the focus of attention moved from the country level to the firm level and interest in location issues declined more recently firm based research has itself become increasingly concerned with the study of firm location interactions when examining two way knowledge flows or spillovers between multinational enterprises mnes and other actors in specific locations the diversity or heterogeneity of firms matters as does the diversity of locational environments the localization of knowledge sources depends on mne group level strategies for growth and organizational decentralization on subsidiary level evolution towards local competence creating efforts and on the development of suitable business networks within locations mnes now have a greater potential to benefit from a synergistic locational portfolio of complementary sources of knowledge the locational composition of the international network for knowledge sourcing of a given mne depends upon the extent of institutional compatibility between the locations in which the mne is active this compatibility between locations in turn affects the capacity of the mne to become an insider in local business systems and to influence the local institutional environment

consumer behavior in equilibrium how experiencing physical balance increases compromise choice the authors propose that the physical sensation of balance can affect consumer judgments and decisions a series of six experiments demonstrates that certain consumer behaviors such as leaning back in a chair while shopping online can activate the concept of balance and thereby affect the consumer decision making process specifically consumers experiencing a heightened sense of balance are more likely to choose compromise options the authors propose and show evidence for the mechanism underlying these effects that the concept of balance is metaphorically linked in the mind to the concept of parity and that activating balance increases the accessibility of the parity concept the increased accessibility of parity changes consumer perceptions of the product offerings in a choice set increasing the selection of compromise options because they provide parity on the described product attributes

determinants of the internationalization of regions the role and effectiveness of public policy measures banno m piscitello l and varum c determinants of the internationalization of regions the role and effectiveness of public policy measures regional studies this paper assesses the role of public policy measures on outward internationalization of regions by including financial and non financial incentives among the determinants of the international competitiveness of regions it is found that the former are important to enhance their active internationalization but that variables related to the knowledge and competence base of regions are even more so financial incentives related to equity participation as well as non financial incentives related to the provision of information come out highly significant in stimulating outward internationalization the empirical analysis is conducted for the twenty italian nuts 2 regions over the period 2003 2008

determinants of technological diffusion in mexican manufacturing a plant level analysis abstract production function estimates serve to measure and compare the productive efficiency of a large panel of mexican manufacturing firms during a period of trade liberalization 1984 90 foreign capital is found to have a positive influence on productive efficiency at the plant level but contrarily to crossindustry studies it does not lead to significant spillovers at the sector level enlarging the analysis it is found that technological diffusion is favored by the size of the plant and by agglomeration economies while its correlation with international trade exposure does not appear to be robust

a meta analysis of the indirect impact of foreign direct investment in old and new eu member states understanding productivity spillovers in this paper we summarise combine and explain recent findings from firm level empirical literature focusing on the indirect impact of foreign direct investment fdi on economic performance measured as productivity in the enlarged europe we have reviewed 52 quantitative studies released between 2000 and 2015 and codified 1 133 estimates we run a regression of regressions which measures the strength of the fdi productivity relationship taking advantage of large number of high quality studies on fdi and its role in explaining the growth in firms productivity in europe we adopt recent meta regression analysis methods funnel asymmetry and precision estimate tests and precision effect estimate with standard errors to explain the heterogeneous impact of fdi this paper assesses the country specific impact of fdi on firms performance after taking publication selection bias econometric modelling and the individual studies characteristics fully into account our results show that on average fdi has a positive indirect impact on productivity the impact is especially significant in selected european countries and we interpret this as a sign of better absorptive capacities in those countries

globalization countries cities and multinationals mccann p and acs z j globalization countries cities and multinationals regional studies this paper explores the relationship between the size of a country the size of its cities and the importance of economies of scale in the modern era of globalization in order to do this it integrates three different literatures namely the literature on the optimal size of a country the literature on historical processes of urbanization and the performance of cities and the literature on the role of multinational firms in the global economy using an economic geography perspective but looking at these issues through the lens of economic history it is demonstrated that the importance of agglomeration effects and in particular relationship between city size and the prosperity of the nation state has changed over the different eras of globalization in earlier eras of globalization the importance of agglomeration was represented by a fairly simple relationship between the scale of the city and the scale

analysing the determinants of us direct investment in mexico in this paper a simple model of foreign direct investment is developed and tested on investment flows from the usa to mexico between 1967 and 1994 using cointegration analysis domestic demand and relative factor costs are found to influence direct investment flows suggesting support for both the cheap labour and market size hypotheses the short run dynamics of the model indicate that exchange rate movements have an effect on the timing of the investment decision

the export diversifying impact of japanese and us foreign direct investments in the indian manufacturing sector the paper highlights the export diversifying impact of foreign direct investment fdi in a developing country fdi may lead to export diversification in the host country if it positively affects the export intensity of industries that have a low share in world exports indirectly fdi may encourage export diversification through spillover effects that is the presence of fdi in an industry may increase the export intensity of domestic firms the empirical results for the indian economy in the post liberalisation period show that fdi from the us has led to diversification of india s exports both directly and indirectly however japanese fdi has had no significant impact on india s exports