Financial structure,productivity, and risk of foreign direct investment

This study investigates how heterogeneous firms choose their lenders when they raise external finance for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and how the choice of financing structure affects FDI activities. We establish an asymmetric information model to analyze why certain firms use private bank loans while others use public bonds to finance foreign production. The hidden information is the productivity shock to FDI. Banks are willing to monitor the risk of FDI, while bondholders are not; hence, banks act as a costly middleman that enables firms to avoid excessive risk. We show that firms’ productivity levels, the riskiness of FDI, and the relative costs of bank finance and bond finance are three key determinants of the firm’s financing choice. Countries with higher productivity, higher bank costs, or investment in less risky destinations, use more bond finance than bank finance. These results are supported by evidence from OECD countries.     

Technology transfers,foreign investment and productivity spillovers

This paper explores the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the productivity of host country domestic firms. We rely on a specially designed survey of over 4000 manufacturing firms in Vietnam, and separate out productivity gains along the supply chain (obtained through direct transfers of knowledge/technology between linked firms) from productivity effects through indirect FDI spillovers. In addition to identifying indirect vertical productivity spillovers from FDI, our results show that there are productivity gains associated with direct linkages between foreign-owned and domestic firms along the supply chain not captured by commonly used measures of spillovers. This includes evidence of productivity gains through forward linkages for domestic firms which receive inputs from foreign-owned firms.     

Product sophistication and spillovers from foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries is often associated with higher economic growth due to knowledge and technology spillovers to local firms. One way that FDI speeds up growth is by facilitating the manufacturing of more sophisticated products by local firms. So far, there is a lack of firm‐level evidence how the presence of multinational firms affects the product sophistication of firms in a developing country. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap. We compile an extensive firm–product‐level data set of Indian manufacturing firms, which we complement with information on product sophistication and spillovers from FDI. We then explore different channels through which spillovers from multinationals to local Indian firms foster the manufacturing of sophisticated products. We find evidence that spillovers through supplier linkages strongly increase the manufacturing of sophisticated products in India.     

Price undertakings, VERs, and foreign direct investment: the case of foreign rivalry

Abstract.  Antidumping (AD) petitions are often withdrawn in favour of voluntary export restraints (VERs) and price undertakings. This paper compares these policy options in the presence of protection-jumping foreign direct investment (FDI), with special emphasis on rivalry between foreign firms. We show that a VER is less likely to induce FDI than a price undertaking or AD. As a result, by settling AD cases with VER agreements, the importing country can pursue a more protectionist policy without triggering FDI. In this sense the GATT ban on VERs following the proliferation of AD uses was a sensible decision.     

Foreign direct investment and spillovers: gradualism may be better

Abstract.  The standard argument says that in the presence of positive spillovers foreign direct investment should be promoted and subsidized. In contrast, this paper claims that the very existence of spillovers may require temporarily restricting FDI. Our argument is based on two features of spillovers: they are limited by the economy's absorptive capacity and they take time to materialize. By letting in capital more gradually, initial investment has the time to create spillovers – and upgrade the economy's absorptive capacity – before further investment occurs. The economy converges to a steady state with a superior technology and a greater capital stock.     

Absorptive capacity and the effects of foreign direct investment and equity foreign portfolio investment on economic growth

This study examines the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and equity foreign portfolio investment (EFPI) on economic growth using data on 80 countries from 1979 through 1998. The results largely suggest that lagged FDI and EFPI do not have direct, unmitigated positive effects on growth, but some data are consistent with the view that the effects of FDI and EFPI are contingent on the ‘absorptive capacity’ of host countries, with particular respect to financial or institutional development. Moreover, extreme bound analysis (EBA) of significant results indicates that the estimates are robust compared to other empirical studies on growth.     

Migrant networks and foreign direct investment

Although there exists a sizeable literature documenting the importance of ethnic networks for international trade, little attention has been devoted to studying the effects of migrants on foreign direct investment (FDI). The presence of migrants can stimulate FDI by promoting information flows across international borders and by serving as a contract enforcement mechanism. This paper investigates the link between the presence of migrants in the US and US FDI in the migrants' countries of origin, taking into account the potential endogeneity concerns. The results suggest that US FDI abroad is positively correlated with the presence of migrants from the host country. The data further indicate that the relationship between FDI and migration is stronger for migrants with tertiary education.     

Exporting, productivity and agglomeration

Economic analysis of adjustment to globalisation has shifted from countries and industries to firms and plants. One particularly fruitful area for research has been aspects of entry to, participation in and exit from export markets. This paper contributes to that literature. Its focus is the exporting behaviour of manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom. To isolate the impact of participation in export markets we use nearest neighbour matching. For 1988-2002, we find evidence that spillovers associated with agglomeration can raise the probability of export market entry and once entry has occurred there may be additional productivity benefits. Survival is driven partly by size and total factor productivity and partly by industry characteristics.     

Determinants of foreign direct investment

Empirical studies of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) activity show substantial differences in specifications with little agreement on the set of included covariates. We use Bayesian statistical techniques that allow one to select from a large set of candidates those variables most likely to be determinants of FDI activity. The variables with consistently high inclusion probabilities include traditional gravity variables, cultural distance factors, relative labour endowments and trade agreements. There is little support for multilateral trade openness, most host‐country business costs, host‐country infrastructure and host‐country institutions. Our results suggest that many covariates found significant by previous studies are not robust.     

Foreign direct investment and technology spillovers: Evidence from panel data analysis of manufacturing firms in Zambia

The most pronounced reason for providing fiscal incentives to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) is that FDI is an effective conduit for technology transfer through technology spillovers to domestically owned firms in the host country. This study analyzes the nature and significance of productivity externalities of FDI to local firms, both in terms of intra-industry and inter-industry spillovers, using firm-level data from Zambia. The results show little evidence in support of intra-industry productivity spillovers from FDI on one hand, and significant inter-industry knowledge spillovers occurring through linkages. The net impact of FDI depends on the interaction between intra-industry and inter-industry productivity effects.     

Privatization, strategic foreign direct investment and host-country welfare

Recent evidence shows that developing countries and transition economies are increasingly privatizing their public firms and at the same time experiencing rapid growth of inward foreign direct investment (FDI). We show that there is a two-way causality between privatization and greenfield FDI. Privatization increases the incentive for FDI, which, in turn, increases the incentive for privatization compared to the situation of no FDI. The optimal degree of privatization depends on the cost difference of the firms, and on the foreign firm's mode of entry.     

Welfare, home market effects, and horizontal foreign direct investment

Abstract.  We investigate the spatial distribution and organization of an imperfectly competitive industry when firms may choose to operate more than a single production unit. Focusing on a short-run setting with a fixed mass of firms, we first fully characterize the spatial equilibria analytically. Comparing the equilibrium and the first-best, we secondly show that both organizational and spatial inefficiencies may arise. In particular, when fixed costs are low, when transport costs are high, and when products are close substitutes, the market outcome may well have to too many multinationals operating from a social point of view ('over-investment'). As a by-product, under-agglomeration of exporters in the larger market may arise.     

Core competencies,matching and the structure of foreign direct investment

We develop a matching model of foreign direct investment to study how multinational firms choose between greenfield investment, acquisitions and joint ownership. Firms must invest in a continuum of tasks to bring a product to market. Each firm possesses a core competency in the task space, but the firms are otherwise identical. For acquisitions and joint ownership, a multinational enterprise (MNE) must match with a local partner that may provide complementary expertise within the task space. However, under joint ownership, investment in tasks is shared by multiple owners and, hence, is subject to a holdup problem that varies with contract intensity. In equilibrium, ex ante identical multinationals enter the local matching market, and, ex post, three different types of heterogeneous firms arise. Specifically, the worst matches are forgone and the MNEs invest greenfield; the middle matches operate under joint ownership; and the best matches integrate via full acquisition. We link the firm‐level model to cross‐country and industry predictions and find that a greater share of full acquisitions occur between more proximate markets, in hosts with greater revenue potential and within contract‐intensive industries. Using data on partial and full acquisitions across industries and countries, we find robust support for these predictions.     

Foreign direct investment and productivity spillovers: a quantile analysis

This paper estimates the within-plant and spillover productivity effects of foreigninvestment in Mexican manufacturing plants. It contributes to the existing literature by analyzing whether FDI of North American origin differs from FDI from the rest of the world. I also use quantile regression analysis to determine whether spillovers are equal for plants of different productivity levels. The results indicate positive and significant spillovers from the presence of foreign firms. However, these spillovers accrue only to plants at the upper end of the productivity distribution. Furthermore, North American based FDI appears to yield slightly larger spillovers relative to FDI from the rest of the world; however the difference is not statistically significant. A deeper look at this issue reveals that Canadian FDI yields large productivity spillovers relative to both US and rest of the world FDI. These differences are highly statistically significant.     

R&D and foreign direct investment with asymmetric spillovers

This paper analyzes how firms’ R&D investment decisions are affected by asymmetries in knowledge transmission, considering different sources of asymmetry such as unequal know-how management capabilities and spillovers localization within an international oligopoly. We show that a better ability to manage knowledge flows incentivizes the firm to invest more in R&D. By introducing geographically bounded spillovers, we also find that one-way foreign direct investment (FDI) stimulates the multinational enterprise to raise its own R&D and that an FDI equilibrium is more likely to occur. Finally, spillovers localization leading to two-way FDI is welfare improving when compared with non-localized spillovers.     

The importance of clusters for spillovers from foreign direct investment and technology sourcing

This paper examines the link between cluster development andinward foreign direct investment. The conventional policy approachhas been to assume that inward foreign direct investment (FDI)can stimulate significant clustering activity, thus generatingsignificant spillovers. This paper, however, questions thisand shows that, while clusters can generate significant productivityspillovers from FDI, this only occurs in pre-existing clusters.Further, the paper demonstrates that foreign-owned firms thatenter clusters also appropriate spillovers when domestic firmsundertake investment, raising the possibility that clustersare important locations for so called technology, or knowledgesourcing activities by MNEs.     

Antidumping duties, undertakings, and foreign direct investment in the EU

We study the effects of EU antidumping policy when foreign firms can ‘jump’ antidumping duties through foreign direct investment (FDI) in the EU. We show that duty jumping or duty pre-empting FDI occurs if the EU administration has broader objectives than protecting EU industry's profitability and if cost advantages of foreign firms are transferable abroad. The (expectation of) price undertakings reduces the incentives to engage in FDI and may even discourage FDI as long as products are not too differentiated. The results are consistent with recent empirical findings on antidumping jumping FDI.     

The benefits to domestically owned plants from inward direct investment: the role of vertical linkages

Abstract The paper estimates the effects of the U.S. direct investment in Canada upon productivity in domestically owned plants. We distinguish between FDI in the industry of domestically controlled plants and FDI in the industries linked through supply or use of intermediate inputs. We find that an increase in supplier FDI increases productivity growth in domestically controlled plants. The positive productivity effects of FDI are more pronounced for plants that buy more intermediates and who purchase science‐based intermediate inputs (i.e., electronics, machinery and equipment, and chemicals). Productivity of domestic plants also benefits from larger‐scale and higher rates of advanced technologies adoption.     

Competition in taxes and performance requirements for foreign direct investment

Tax incentives offered to attract firms engaged in foreign direct investment are often tied to performance requirements such as domestic content restrictions or adherence to environmental standards. The tax competition literature has repeatedly shown that competition between municipalities for mobile firms tends to drive taxes to low levels. One would expect a comparable result for burdensome performance requirements. Despite this, the evidence suggests that while taxes have indeed been driven down, performance requirements are as popular as ever. We explain this seeming conundrum by showing that in the presence of spillovers, binding performance requirements can act as a coordination device for firms. In equilibrium, municipalities choose performance requirements, which maximize joint surplus from investment. Competition between municipalities then transfers this surplus to firms via tax subsidies.     

The impact of bilateral investment treaties on foreign direct investment

This paper uses a large panel of OECD data on stocks of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) to evaluate the impact of bilateral investment treaties. For several variants of the knowledge capital model of multinationals, we demonstrate that investment treaties exert a significant positive effect on outward FDI, if they actually are implemented. Moreover, even signing a treaty has a positive, although lower and in most specifications insignificant, effect on FDI. Journal of Comparative Economics 32 (4) (2004) 788–804.