Foreign direct investment and productivity spillovers in Irish manufacturing industry: evidence from plant level panel data

It is often argued that foreign firms may enhance the productivity of indigenous firms in an economy, through forward or backward linkages. Such externality effects typically are called “productivity spillovers”. In terms of foreign direct investment (FDI), Ireland is one of the most globalized economies in the world, having pursued a strategy of promoting investment by foreign companies for over 40 years. This article examines possible productivity spillovers from foreign‐owned firms to indigenous firms in the Irish manufacturing sector, using plant‐level data on all manufacturing firms for the period 1991–1998. Despite Irish policy commitment to building linkages between foreign and domestic firms, we find only weak evidence of spillovers and this evidence is sensitive to the definition and measurement of foreign presence.     

Spillovers from foreign direct investment and firm growth: technological,financial and market structure effects

This article examines spillover effects from inward investment on domestic firm growth in the case of a developed host country. The emphasis is placed on the role of the technological gap between domestic and foreign firms in identifying the importance of technology diffusion from the presence of multinationals. An augmented production function is employed to account for technological, financial and market structure effects. Based on a sample of 2589 manufacturing firms operating in Greece between 1992 and 1997, the analysis provides evidence that the significance of spillovers varies with the relative technological position of domestic firms and is higher in the middle and upper quantiles of the growth distribution. It was estimated that a unit increase in the foreign presence in Greek industry raises output growth by 7% on average, in a five‐year period, after controlling for technological differences among firms. This result is consistent with the ‘absorptive capacity’ hypothesis that the technological capability of the host country relates positively to FDI spillover benefits.     

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Signalling Device for Foreign Direct Investment

A rise in CSR (corporate social responsibility) has accompanied rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) to developing countries in the 1990s. CSR may be serving a signalling function when the entering firm is of an unknown type. Although countries are now competing keenly to attract foreign firms, even so, excessive tax or excess transfers by firms can still cause a Prisoner’s Dilemma structure to the payoffs resulting in an inefficient Nash equilibrium. CSR allows the accommodating firm to reveal its type, making cooperation the equilibrium outcome. The game differs from standard models since signalling changes the payoffs. A unique separating equilibrium exists where only the accommodating firms signal. But, under certain parameter values, a pooling equilibrium where all firms signal, becomes possible. A number of results are derived including the size of CSR expenditure required as a fraction of profits. An example demonstrates their relevance in practical situations.     

The impact of inward FDI on local companies’ labour productivity: evidence from the Italian case

The article aims to investigate the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) occurring through acquisition upon the local target company’ performance, as measured by labour productivity. It relies upon the idea that multinational enterprises (MNEs) act as a device to transfer firm‐specific proprietary assets, thus causing their subsidiaries to exhibit better performance than their host country rivals. Specifically, our results show that foreign acquisitions generally increase the local target companies’ labour productivity in the medium term after the acquisition. The empirical evidence refers to foreign acquisitions that occurred in Italy in the period 1994–1997.     

Escapism FDI from developed economies: The role of regulatory context and corporate taxation

In this paper, we extend the conceptualisation of escapism Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) holding for emerging economies to developed economies that face specific institutional failures, such as weak or incomplete regulations, along with high taxation. We combine this literature with the recent development of Dunning’s eclectic paradigm, which includes institutional aspects regarding location factors. We argue that in developed economies with problematic regulations and high taxation, sound institutions and lower tax rates abroad are extremely significant for domestic firms’ internationalisation. A central result regards the moderating effect of host regulatory quality on taxation, which highlights the crucial role of institutions for firms originating in developed economies that lack sound institutions. Additionally, the results challenge the available theorising and evidence on the moderating role of institutions in the prior experience of a firm at a location. We instead provide evidence that once firms establish a subsidiary abroad, they acquire substantial knowledge about the host institutional environment, which translates into an Ot advantage, providing an additional motive for further expansion. This work uses a unique database of the total population of Greek MNEs – released for the first time – for an extended time period, 2001–2010. The results could be generalised to similar developed economies facing analogous regulatory failures and high taxation, such as the southern European Union countries, as well as even for northern European Union countries, such as Germany, according to Bundesbank’s report.     

Adjustment strategies of multinational enterprises to changing national competitiveness

This article establishes a link between four combinations of relative firm‐specific advantages and comparative advantage and the adjustment strategies of multinational firms. Based on the distribution of firms across advantage combinations, hypotheses on four adjustment strategies are developed: expansion, rationalization, exit and relocation. Upon a detailed analysis of a representative sample of manufacturing firms for 1990–2000, a consistent competitiveness ranking of domestic and foreign firms across industries and over time is derived. The strategies followed by the firms are reflected by the development of employment, value‐added and exports. Results show that firms are not distributed entirely in line with comparative advantage, but the dynamic interaction (“match”) of location‐advantage and firm‐specific advantage seems to be decisive. Results also confirm that domestic and foreign firms partly react differently under a given advantage combination. The following principles for location policies are suggested: the empirically measured mismatch of firm capabilities and location advantages determine when direct and indirect measures should be used. The intensity of policy measures should be oriented towards the competitiveness ranking derived.     

Product Regulation and Stock Prices: The Case of the US Food and Drug Administration

This study focuses on the stock market effects associated with the announcements of product approvals, denials and recalls by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the impact of product approvals on research and development expenditures (R&D) and forecasts of earnings by Value Line. When the FDA announces approvals, the shareholder wealth of affected firms increases significantly. The announcements of denials and recalls by the FDA are associated with stock price declines. The stock price impact of recalls is dependent on whether the firm voluntarily withdraws a product or if the withdrawal is mandated by the FDA. Specifically, voluntary recalls are not associated with a change in stockholder wealth, while FDA mandated recalls are associated with decreases in stock price. In addition, we find that partial product recalls have a smaller impact than total recalls. An examination of the effects on competitors' stock price reveals losses when the FDA announces an approval or a recall, but no imt for a d. An analysis of changes in risk around FDA decisions suggests that, on average, betas do not change around approvals, recalls or denials. In addition, our results suggest that announcement period stock price behavior is unrelated to risk changes except for approvals where returns are positive and significant for firms with either increasing risk or no change in risk. We also find that approvals are associated with increases in R&D and forecasts of earnings for the sample firms, with returns to stockholders upon announcement of the approval being related to the increases in R&D and short-term earnings forecasts.