The role of inward foreign direct investment on entrepreneurship

This paper investigates whether foreign firms had a positive impact on entrepreneurial activity measured by the net creation of firms. Using firm-level panel data for the Portuguese manufacturing and service industries over the period 1986 to 2000, we test whether the impact of foreign firms on firms’ entry depends on the number and size of previous foreign entrants. Overall, the results cast some doubts on the influence of foreign firms in assisting entrepreneurial activity. The impact of a first foreign investment is, in general, positive but the marginal impact of additional investments appears to be negative.     

Explorers of the twenty-first century? A systematic literature review of the scholarship on international entrepreneurs from developed economies

Throughout history, expeditionists and explorers have discovered foreign countries and new worlds, markedly influencing the lives of succeeding generations. However, as multinational enterprises have come to drive globalisation, the existence of entrepreneurial individuals without the resources of large corporations is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although research on migrant entrepreneurs demonstrates the positive impact that foreign entrepreneurial activity can have on job creation and innovation, a clear perspective on entrepreneurs from developed economies venturing abroad is lacking. The study aggregates evidence from 33 articles to establish a unifying framework that describes the foreign entrepreneurial process originating in developed economies. The framework proposes categorising foreign entrepreneurial activity according to social and economic dimensions and introduces four archetypes of foreign entrepreneurs, helping us understand the dynamics of the institutional context and the motivations for venturing into foreign environments. Finally, the study discusses the implications for foreign entrepreneurs and considers future research avenues.

     

The effect of foreign ownership on SMEs performance: An efficiency analysis perspective

This paper uses both Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH) models in order to determine different performance levels in a sample of 353 foreign equities operating in the Greek manufacturing sector. Particularly, convex and non-convex models are used alongside with bootstrap techniques in order to determine the effect of foreign ownership on SMEs’ performance. The study illustrates how the recent developments in efficiency analysis and statistical inference can be applied when evaluating performance issues. The analysis among the foreign equities indicates that the levels of foreign ownership have a positive effect on SMEs’ performance.     

An analysis of foreign takeovers in the United States

Using a sample of 96 US companies taken over by foreign companies during the period 1975-87, we assess foreign takeovers in two stages: pre-takeover and takeover. We find evidence that foreign firms target US firms whose operations are related to their own operations and that have low market-to-book ratios, suggesting foreign bidders acquire firms that provide a greater opportunity for market entry and synergistic gains. The synergistic gains appear to result from the foreign buyer using its own intangible assets (e.g. managerial skills) to improve the target. We also find that foreign takeover activity is aimed primarily at US industries that themselves make high levels of foreign direct investments, implying that the bidders use takeovers as a quick way to counteract rival firms' moves. We find evidence that foreign takeovers take place in relatively mature, low-growth industries and that foreign targets are, on average, smaller than the non-targets. The wealth effect on the announcement of a takeover is significantly higher for foreign takeovers than for takeovers by domestic firms. Also, we find that foreign bidders pay a slightly higher premium for targets whose operations are related to their own.     

人民币国际化、汇率变动与人民币FDI关系研究

基于国际货币循环角度，分析人民币国际化、汇率变动与人民币FDI的互动关系，结果表明：人民币国际化程度的提高会使人民币产生升值压力，人民币升值会促进人民币国际化；人民币国际化和人民币FDI之间存在相互促进的关系；人民币贬值引起人民币FDI规模增加，人民币FDI对人民币汇率的影响不显著。     

Efficiency externalities of trade and alternative forms of foreign investment in OECD countries

The literature on the spillover effects of trade and inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) has concentrated on technological externalities. Little effort has been directed towards identifying their efficiency externalities. This paper measures the efficiency externalities of trade and various forms of foreign investment for a sample of 20 OECD countries between 1982 and 2000 using a stochastic frontier approach. Trade and all foreign investment inflows are found to enhance efficiency, whereas outflows of FDI are found to exacerbate inefficiency. The efficiency externalities from foreign investment are contingent on the absorptive capacity of the host economies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the simultaneity problem in the aid and growth debate

This paper shows that foreign aid has a significant positive average effect on real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth if, and only if, the quantitatively large negative reverse causal effect of per capita GDP growth on foreign aid is adjusted for in the growth regression. Instrumental variables estimates show that a 1 percentage point increase in GDP per capita growth decreased foreign aid by over 4%. Adjusting for this quantitatively large, negative reverse causal effect of economic growth on foreign aid shows that a 1% increase in foreign aid increased real per capita GDP growth by around 0.1 percentage points. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Foreign direct investment and productivity spillovers in the Chinese manufacturing sector

In this paper a simple simultaneous model is constructed to examine whether there are productivity spillovers from both the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI) and competition between local and foreign firms. The model is tested on the data from China’s latest industrial census in 1995. The results indicate that the extent to which spillovers occur varies with different types of ownership of local firms and of FDI. While collective- and private-owned enterprises benefit from demonstration and contagion effects from foreign presence, productivity gains of state-owned enterprises largely come from competition with foreign firms. Productivities of local and foreign firms are jointly determined. Evidence also suggests that market-oriented FDI tends to generate spillovers mainly via competition with local firms.     

Do foreign institutions outperform in the Taiwan options market?

This paper investigates comparative information advantage for foreign and domestic institutions on Taiwan's index options by examining the intraday information content of limit orders placed by foreign and domestic institutions, respectively. The height and length of limit order book provided by either foreign or domestic institutions exhibit predictive power on subsequent price changes in options, especially for put options. The information advantage is more significant for foreign institutions with respect to both call and put options. On the other hand, the results are mixed when order imbalance is used as the proxy of information on limit order book. Foreign institutions outperform domestic institutions for put options, not call options. Order imbalance, ignoring differential aggressiveness of limit orders, fails to capture comparative information advantage for foreign institutions. The superior information advantage for foreign institutions persists during the financial tsunami of 2008–2009 and periods of substantial price changes.     

How Domestic and Foreign Firms Differ and Why Does it Matter?

Abstract.  This paper reviews and summarises the results of selected studies on performance gaps between multinational enterprises and their domestic counterparts. Performance gaps arise in such fields as productivity, technology, profitability, wages, skills and growth. While these gaps are often attributed to foreign ownership of the affiliates, the theory of the Multinational Enterprise argues that these gaps are due to being a Multinational rather than the nationality of the firm. Empirical evidence on the existence of performance gaps between foreign and domestic firms is supportive of this view: foreign ownership turns out to be a much less important explanatory factor than normally assumed. Firm‐specific assets and firm characteristics like industry, size, parent country and multinationality per se are more important. Such results are broadly consistent with those derived in the literatures on ownership change, on foreign entry and on spillovers. We conclude that there is little case for foreign direct investment promotion policies to discriminate between firms on the basis of ownership.     

Strategic R&D Location by Multinational Firms: Spillovers, Technology Sourcing, and Competition

This paper develops a model of strategic interaction in R&D internationalization decisions between two multinational firms, competing both abroad and in their home markets. It examines different incentives for foreign R&D faced by a technology leader and a technology laggard. The model takes into account the impact of local inter firm R&D spillovers, (noncostless) international intra firm transfer of knowledge, and the notion that internal R&D increases the effectiveness of incoming spillovers. Analytical results suggest that greater efficiency of intra firm transfers and greater R&D spillovers increase the attractiveness of domestic R&D for the technology leader if the technology gap with the laggard is large. The lagging firm, in contrast, increases the share of foreign R&D as foreign technology sourcing becomes more effective. Competition encourages the leading firm to engage in foreign R&D to capture a larger share of profits on the foreign market, whereas the laggard concentrates more R&D at home to defend its home market position.     

TBT通报合规度估算方法研究

在依据WTO规则和通报合规性分类及近年来我国对国外通报评议意见分类统计基础上，建立了合规性通报估算指标与估算模型，对2006年和2008年国外通报措施的合规性进行了统计估算。估算结果表明，国外通报评议违规率为23％，其中通报评议壁垒率为13％，通报评议合规度为76％，即2／3的国外通报是符合WTO规定的，只有大约13％的国外通报含有技术性贸易壁垒性质的措施。文章建议：加强技术性贸易措施的国际协调，建立国家通报评议基地，发挥通报评议工作对我国产业发展的引导和决策咨询作用。     

The structure of british industry's sales in foreign markets

The structure of British industry's foreign sales is analysed by its principal components: exports, sales arising from licenses issued abroad and the output from facilities financed by British foreign direct investment. Total foreign sales are analysed by industry and by foreign market and differences in structure on both these dimensions are considerable. The literature is analysed in order to determine a preliminary set of variables which explain the structure at this highly aggregated level. Examination of the data allows us to focus on the most important explanatory variables, which include exchange rates, government policies and supply and demand factors.     

MNC's competitive strategies,experiences, and staffing policies for foreign affiliates

This study investigates the relationship between the strategic role of a multinational corporation's (MNC) foreign affiliates and its international staffing policy. Specifically, this study examines how an MNC's decision on expatriation is affected by strategic roles assigned to foreign affiliates: global integration of activities versus local market seeking. An empirical study is conducted using a sample of 808 foreign affiliates of Japanese firms. The research findings suggest that strategic roles of foreign affiliates alone may not adequately explain the international staffing policies of Japanese MNCs. Rather, we found a significant moderating effect of international as well as host country experience on staffing practices for foreign affiliates. While the staffing policies of MNCs striving for improving global efficiency of their operation are moderated by both international and host country experience, those seeking a specific local market position are influenced only by host country experience.     

A macroeconomic analysis of foreign assets and foreign liabilities

Although an increase in foreign assets and a decrease in foreign liabilities both increase a nation’s net foreign assets (NFA), they have alternative macroeconomic transmission mechanisms: while an increase in foreign assets is expansionary, the effect of a decrease in foreign liabilities is mixed due to the asymmetry between its income effect and wealth effect on aggregate demand. It is the relative strengths of the NFA’s wealth effect and income effect that determine the existence and natures of a saddle-point equilibrium in the NFA-real balance space as well as its comparative statics. The cointegration analysis suggests that in the 1990s, foreign liabilities bear more weight than foreign assets in the US NFA movement whereas the opposite holds for the case of Japan; therefore, correcting NFA imbalances calls for accelerated money growth and fiscal expenditure pruning in the U.S. but for the opposite policy responses in Japan.

Foreign Equity Ownership and Information Asymmetry: Evidence from Japan

Using a large sample of Japanese firms, we investigate whether the level of foreign ownership in a firm is inversely related to information asymmetry between firm (managers) and market (outside investors). Since information asymmetry is not directly observable and, thus, is difficult to measure empirically, our analysis focuses on the link between foreign shareholding and a measurable consequence of information asymmetry; that is, the timing and magnitude of intertemporal return‐earnings associations. The empirical results support our hypothesis, and subsequent tests based on residual foreign ownership show that the relation between foreign ownership and information asymmetry is robust to the addition of various control variables such as market capitalization and cross‐corporate holdings. We also show that foreign investors tend to avoid stocks with high cross‐corporate holdings. Overall, our results suggest that foreign (institutional) investors are likely to be efficient processors of public information and are attracted to Japanese firms with low information asymmetry.     

An American Woman in Turkey: Adventures Unexpected and Knowledge Unplanned1

What is it like for foreign women professionals to work in a country like Turkey—managing subordinates, working with clients and supervisors? What kind of social life do they have? In this article, the authors answer these questions and more, drawing on interviews with foreign women professionals working in Turkey. Using an unusual narrative approach to present their research results, they reveal unexpected insights and identify key success factors such as the importance of foreign education over gender and the influence economic development of the host country may exert on women's success. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

OFFSHORING, MULTINATIONALS AND LABOUR MARKET: A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

Abstract.  This paper reviews the empirical literature on the effects of offshoring and foreign activities of multinational enterprises on developed countries' labour markets. Results suggest that material offshoring worsens wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers; it also seems to make employment more volatile, by raising the elasticity of labour demand and the risk of job losses. Service offshoring exerts at most small negative effects on total employment, and changes the composition of the workforce in favour of high-skilled white-collar employees. Multinationals tend to substitute domestic and foreign labour in response to changes in relative wages across countries; substitutability is weak, however, and mainly driven by horizontal, market-seeking foreign direct investments.     

Foreign direct investment and its impact on the Thai economy: the role of financial development

This paper examines the roles of foreign direct investment and financial development in the process of economic development using Thailand as the case study. We argue that better developed financial systems allow an economy to exploit the benefits of foreign direct investment more efficiently. The estimation draws upon an unrestricted error-correction model to avoid omitted lagged variable bias, and an instrumental variable estimator to correct for endogeneity bias. Using annual time series data from 1970 to 2004, the results show that financial development stimulates economic development whereas foreign direct investment impacts negatively on output expansion in the long run. However, an increased level of financial development enables Thailand to gain more from foreign direct investment, suggesting that the impact of foreign direct investment on output growth can be enhanced through financial development. The results are robust to different measures of financial development.      

金融业开放与中国制造业竞争力提升

研究目标：探究外资银行进入对制造业企业加成率变化的影响和作用机制。研究方法：基于异质性企业和新增长理论,将企业异质性和新熊彼特模型有机整合到统一框架中提出命题,根据中国工业企业和海关数据库,通过外资银行进入这一外生冲击对银行业开放后的制造业企业“加成率效应”进行实证研究。研究发现：总体上外资银行进入后,进入区域内企业平均加成率显著增加。行业层面异质性渠道检验表明,行业与技术前沿差距越小、行业外部融资依赖度越高、与银行业投入产出关联度越大,外资银行进入“加成率效应”越大。分所有制类型的结果显示,民营和外资企业的正向效应更为显著,且大型民营企业的正向效应值最大。分地区和要素密集度的结果显示,东部和劳动密集型企业的正向“加成率效应”较大。研究创新：首次从企业盈利水平视角出发探讨外资银行进入对下游制造业加成率的影响。研究价值：证实金融业开放有利于提升我国制造业企业市场势力。