Technology spillovers through foreign direct investment. An empirical investigation on the example of Hungarian industry

With the beginning of transition in Central East European countries, foreign direct investment increased strongly whereby foreign subsidiaries transfer modern production technology and management know-how. However, it has remained an open question, how far domestic enterprises also benefit from these developments via technology spillovers. The study points out theoretically possible channels of technology spillovers and empirically investigates the significance, scope and influencing factors of the various spillovers channels on the example of Hungarian industry. The findings show that there are hardly any spillover effects in Hungarian industry so far. Major reasons for that are the strong technological disparities between foreign subsidiaries and domestic firms as well as the lack of labor mobility from foreign to domestic enterprises.

11. December 2003

Authors Jutta Günther

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