Foreign outward direct investment and exports in Austrian manufacturing: Substitutes or complements?

Foreign Outward Direct Investment and Exports in Austrian Manufacturing: Substitutes or Complements? — The relationship between foreign outward direct investment and exports is crucial for assessing the impact of increased internationalization by foreign outward direct investment on a country’s welfare. Three models of trade and FDI are reviewed to generate hypotheses on their direct relationship over time as well as on common determinants. The propositions are empirically examined with time-series cross-section data for Austrian manufacturing. The results indicate a significant complementary relationship between FDI and exports in the eighties and early nineties. Moreover, long-run multipliers of exogenously increased FDI and exports are calculated. They are found to be positive but small in magnitude.     

The role of comparative advantage in trade within industries: A panel data approach for the European Union

The Role of Comparative Advantage in Trade within Industries: A Panel Data Approach for the European Union. — A large share of EU member states trade is intra-industry trade (IIT) in the period 1985-1996; in particular, IIT is based on products differentiated in quality (vertical IIT). Moreover, exports from southern countries are located mainly at the lower end of the price-quality spectrum, whereas those countries with higher per capita incomes are located at the higher end. According to the vertical IIT models, we hypothesize that commercial specialization of members states over the quality spectrum within industries is explained by differences in technological, physical and human capital. The results show that comparative advantage is an important driver of the pattern of European trade within industries.     

Country characteristics and foreign direct investment in China: A panel data analysis

Country Characteristics and Foreign Direct Investment in China: A Panel Data Analysis. — In this paper an error-components model is developed to analyze the economic, political and cultural determinants of both pledged and realized FDI in China which has recently become the second largest host country for FDI. The panel data cover the period 1983–1994 (1984–1994) and 22 (17) home countries/regions in the case of pledged (realized) FDI. The results indicate that bilateral trade, cultural differences, and relative real changes in market size, wage rates, and exchange rates are important determinants of pledged FDI, and that bilateral trade, relative changes in wage rates and exchange rates affect realized FDI.     

Patterns and determinants of international fragmentation of production: Evidence from outward processing trade between the EU and Central Eastern European countries

Patterns and Determinants of International Fragmentation of Production: Evidence from Outward Processing Trade between the EU and Central Eastern European Countries. — In this paper we investigate a specific form of international fragmentation of production, that is, the form giving rise to international trade for reasons of processing. Data on textile and apparel trade between EU countries and Central European countries show that the magnitude of trade for reasons of processing greatly overshadows that of final trade. The industry appears to be affected by a process of international fragmentation whose understanding requires a new definition of the concept of comparative advantage. Our analysis suggests that this fragmentation is activated by labor cost differentials as well as by reasons of geographic and cultural proximity.     

Vertical foreign direct investment: Evidence from Japanese and U.S. multinational enterprises

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries has increased since the 1990s, but there is mixed evidence of vertical FDI associated with factor-seeking motives. This paper estimates the vertical motive of offshore production by multinational enterprises (MNEs) by exploiting past schooling characteristics as instruments for skilled-labor abundance in a host country. Using panel data on Japanese and U.S. MNEs in the 1990s, I find that skilled-labor abundance has a significantly negative impact on sales of manufacturing foreign affiliate only for Japanese MNEs. The results suggest that vertical FDI activity was more prevalent in Japanese MNEs than U.S. MNEs. A plausible explanation is that Japanese MNEs might be more vertically integrated with their offshore production than U.S. MNEs. A difference in foreign outsourcing activities could generate the observed deviation between Japanese and U.S. MNEs.     

Japanese foreign direct investment and regional trade

We examine the relationship between Japanese FDI outflows, domestic and foreign fixed investment, and the exchange rate. The results indicate that aggregate FDI outflows have been driven by investment in Japan and the exchange rate, while the geographic distribution of such investment has been influenced by foreign economic conditions. We also find that FDI outflows have a temporary impact on exports but a permanent effect on imports. We find no evidence that behavior with respect to East Asia differs from that with respect to North America or Europe.     

An empirical assessment of the preconditions of Japanese manufacturing foreign direct investment in the United States

An Empirical Assessment of the Preconditions of Japanese Manufacturing Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. — This study undertook a multivariate regression analysis of Japanese foreign direct investment in the US (FDIUS), based on firm- and industry-specific data. Firm size was a positive and significant explanatory variable of firms’ completed transactions as well as their additions to investment value. Firms’ overall profit was a positive and significant indicator of firms’ addition to investment value, but not their completed transactions. Firms’ return on assets was generally a positive, albeit insignificant indicator of FDIUS. Three industry-specific variables (prior exports to the US, industry concentration, and technological intensity) were examined and all were positive but insignificant indicators of FDIUS.     

The effect of foreign competition on UK employment and wages: Evidence from firm-level panel data

The Effect of Foreign Competition on UK Employment and Wages: Evidence from Firm-Level Panel Data. —This paper contributes to the sparse empirical literature on the effects of foreign competition on domestic employment and wages. The authors estimate a structural labour demand equation on UK firm-level panel data between 1982 and 1989 and several wage equations. When they restrict the sample to the manufacturing sector only, they find for the unionized firms that foreign competition has a negative effect on both wages and on employment. However, when UK manufacturing firms face only a few rivals, foreign competition has a positive effect on wages, but no effect on employment.     

Foreign direct investment and productivity spillovers: Evidence from the Spanish experience

Foreign Direct Investment and Productivity Spillovers: Evidence from the Spanish Experience. — The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on firms’ productivity using a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 1990–1998. Firstly, we show that for countries, like Spain, that are undergoing significant structural changes over the period in question it is important to control for both time-invariant as well as time-variant sectoral characteristics. Secondly, we confirm previous findings that one needs to take into account the “absorptive capacity” of firms when considering whether they are able to avail of externalities associated with FDI presence. For the Spanish case we find that only firms with sufficient levels of such capacity experience positive spillovers.     

Multinational firms, market integration, and trade structure: What remains of the standard-goods hypothesis?

Multinational Firms, Market Integration, and Trade Structure: What Remains of the Standard-Goods Hypothesis? — In extending traditional empirical trade models to multinational firms, this paper shows the effect of the transfer of firm-specific technology and intangible assets by these firms on the structure of host countries. For Belgium, a small open economy with a large presence of foreign multinationals, this effect is of crucial importance and previous studies appeared to have produced biased results by neglecting it. The econometric results show how the large multinational presence induced by the European integration has shifted Belgium’s trade structure towards differentiated products, thereby challenging the standard-goods hypothesis which states that small countries tend to specialize in nondifferentiated products. Spain and Ireland have witnessed an increase in foreign direct investment and a shift in trade structure similar to Belgium after joining the EC.     

Overseas industrial parks and China's outward foreign direct investment

We manually collect data on China's overseas industrial parks from 2007 to 2018, and match it with data on the country’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), using the system generalized method of moment (system GMM) approach to test how constructing overseas industrial parks affects China's OFDI. The results indicate that each new overseas industrial park established significantly increases China's OFDI by 2.89%. And the effect only exists in non-high-income host countries, rather than high-income host countries. We also investigate the effects of different types of industrial parks, and find that agricultural, light industrial, high-tech, comprehensive and heavy industrial parks have significant effects, while logistics parks do not. The mechanism analysis suggests that establishing overseas industrial parks increases China’s OFDI by reducing host countries’ economic and financial risks, and improving bilateral political relations. We further find that establishing overseas industrial parks is more likely to promote OFDI in host countries with imperfect infrastructure, impeded capital flows and low levels of unimpeded information. Our findings shed light on how developing countries could enlarge and stabilize OFDI.     

Global outsourcing or foreign direct investment: Why apple chose outsourcing for the iPod

A simple model is presented, where a firm's productivity is endogenized by its R&D investment. It shows that the most productive firms may prefer international outsourcing to foreign direct investment (FDI) in industries with a high innovation share. The high innovation share motivates the firms to economize on organizational cost in order to save resources for R&D investment, making outsourcing preferable to FDI because the former incurs a smaller organizational cost. This model helps explain why Apple Inc., belonging to the electronics industry, which has a particularly high innovation share, launched its innovative iPod through international outsourcing instead of FDI.     

Environmental regulation and outward foreign direct investment: Evidence from China

This paper explores the impact of environmental regulation (ER) on outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in China. During the period from 2013 to 2015, all Chinese cities were required to join a nationwide automatic air quality monitoring network in batches, and this policy exogenously raised local environmental regulation. This unique policy implemented full coverage through a staggered adoption, which motivates this paper to apply an event study approach to identify the treatment effect of stringent environmental regulation. Based on a city-year level capital outflows dataset constructed from the fDi Markets database, we obtain three main findings: (1) environmental regulation significantly stimulates outward FDI flows; (2) this promoting effect centers on polluting industries; and (3) these ER-induced FDI outflows are mainly directed toward countries with weaker environmental protection and with a closer geographic and cultural distance to the home country. These results together provide a snapshot confirming the classical “pollution haven hypothesis”.     

Exchange rate expectations and foreign direct investment flows

Exchange Rate Expectations and Foreign Direct Investment Flows. — Theories about exchange rate expectations are difficult to check empirically. We study FDI data to find indirect evidence on the formation of exchange rate expectations by foreign direct investors. Using panel data techniques on exchange rate movements and FDI flows from the United States to 20 OECD countries we find that skewness of devaluations has a robust positive impact on FDI flows while average devaluation and its volatility do not. We view this evidence as consistent with the hypothesis that relatively large exchange rate movements generate mean-reverting long-run expectations. This finding is consistent with survey-based evidence on exchange rate expectations.     

Productivity,financial constraints and outward foreign direct investment: Firm-level evidence

This paper studies the relationship between the financial constraints and outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Chinese enterprises. First, we construct a theoretical model and develop a series of hypotheses to analyze how productivity and financial constraints influence firms' OFDI decisions. Then we construct a multivariate index to measure internal and external financial constraints. Using Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database as well as the Database of OFDI Firms in China, our empirical finds that both productivity and financial constraints have important impacts on firms' OFDI decisions. In addition, the marginal effect of the financial constraints increases as firms' productivity rises; an effect felt more to the private enterprises than state-owned enterprises. Empirical results also indicate that external financial constraints affect the firms' OFDI decisions more greatly than the internal financial constraints.     

The role of foreign direct investment in Indonesia's manufacturing exports

This article examines whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed to the changing structure of Indonesia's manufacturing exports. It uses industry-level data from 1990 to 2008, classified by factor intensity. Our analysis reveals that FDI promotes exports in most panel observations, especially exports from physical-capital-intensive (PCI), human-capital-intensive (HCI) and technology-intensive (TI) industries. Yet by applying a differentiated cross-section-effect model, we determine that the export-generating potential of FDI is stronger in PCI, HCI and TI industries than in natural-resource-intensive or unskilled-labour-intensive industries, in which Indonesia has a comparative advantage. We also assess the influence of other determinants of export performance – namely, private domestic capital investment, GDP growth and exchange rates. Our findings have implications for policymakers seeking to sustain Indonesia's export performance.     

Horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade between Eastern Europe and the European union

Horizontal and Vertical Intra-Industry Trade Between Eastern Europe and the European Union. — The share of intra-industry trade (IIT) in total trade between central and east European nations and the EU is broken down into various components. Vertical IIT is found to account for 80 to 90 percent of total IIT. Controlling for country-specific effects, it is positively associated with product differentiation, labor intensity of production, economies of scale, and foreign direct investment (FDI). Horizontal IIT is also positively correlated with FDI and product differentiation; however, a significant negative relationship is found for scale and labor intensity.     

Rules of origin and technology spillovers from foreign direct investment under international duopoly

Using a simple three-country model of international duopoly, this study analyzes the optimal choice of rules of origin (ROO) in a free trade area/agreement (FTA) when firms from outside the FTA must undertake foreign direct investment (FDI) in FTA countries and conduct part of their production process within the FTA to comply with the ROO. FDI causes spillovers of the superior production technology from a non-FTA firm to its competitor within the FTA, depending on how much of the production process is shifted to the FTA area. In this situation, this study predicts that as the degree of multilateral trade liberalization before formation of the FTA is higher, the optimal ROO tends to be less stringent.     

Pollution havens,endogenous environmental policy,and foreign direct investment

In an increasingly integrated world economy, countries may have greater incentives to weaken environmental policy as disguised protection intended to give a competitive edge to local firms. This may generate pollution havens as firms relocate in response to different environmental policies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) weakens profit‐shifting policy considerations while increasing environmental damages but, at the same time, may provide external benefits. We derive conditions under which the FDI‐recipient country has an incentive to manipulate its environmental standard to prevent or attract FDI, potentially eliminating or creating pollution havens, in addition to examining the impact of FDI on the equilibrium state of the environment.     

Investment facilitation and China's outward foreign direct investment along the belt and road

This study provides a comprehensive and accurate measurement of investment facilitation in 66 countries along the Belt and Road from 2007 to 2018. The expanded gravity model analyzes the impact of host country investment facilitation on China's outward foreign direct investment, and the panel threshold model examines the nonlinear relationship between investment facilitation and outward foreign direct investment. The results indicate significant differences in the level of investment facilitation among countries along the Belt and Road. Overall, spatial distribution characteristics are higher in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe compared to other regions. An increase of 1% in the level of investment facilitation provided by the host country can generally promote a 2.173% increase in China's outward foreign direct investment. Market size (GDP) and technological progress rate (Tec) were used as thresholds for dividing countries along the Belt and Road into four economic regions. Countries in the different economic regions have different levels of sensitivity to investment facilitation and first-level indicators. Currently, Chinese outward foreign direct investment is based on market acquisition but will be based on technological upgrading in the future.