Comparative Study of Multinational Companies in the Enlarged EU - A Technology Transfer Perspective
Johannes Stephan, Björn Jindra, I. Klugert
Conference Proceedings of „Comparing International Competitiveness of Manufacturing Companies in the EU with Special Emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe“,
2007
Abstract
Our study makes a novel contribution to the analysis of the link between multinational companies' heterogeneity and technological transfer. Thereby, we focus on internal technology transfer i.e. technology flowing from the multinational enterprise to the foreign subsidiary. We estimate the impact of corporate governance, subsidiary objectives, local absorptive capacity, as well as the cultural and geographic distance as potential determinants of internal technology transfer. We control for other observed firm- and industry-specific effects as well as unobserved host-country effects. We test our hypothesis with a firm-level data simultaneously collected from 434 foreign subsidiaries in Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2002/2003. The evidence seems to indicate that the nature of the parent-subsidiary relationship is subject to the institutional context, subsidiary objectives, and risks involved for the foreign parent. These factors in turn determine the incentives for transferring knowledge to the subsidiary. Foreign subsidiaries' absorptive capacity enhances the intensity of internal technology transfer. In contrast geographic distance seems to limit the extent of technology transfer within the company. Country-of-origin-effects seem not to be statistically relevant for internal technology transfer once we control for observable firm, industry, and unobserved host-country-specific effects.
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Bank Lending, Bank Capital Regulation and Efficiency of Corporate Foreign Investment
Diemo Dietrich, Achim Hauck
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 4,
2007
Abstract
In this paper we study interdependencies between corporate foreign investment and the capital structure of banks. By committing to invest predominantly at home, firms can reduce the credit default risk of their lending banks. Therefore, banks can refinance loans to a larger extent through deposits thereby reducing firms’ effective financing costs. Firms thus have an incentive to allocate resources inefficiently as they then save on financing costs. We argue that imposing minimum capital adequacy for banks can eliminate this incentive by putting a lower bound on financing costs. However, the Basel II framework is shown to miss this potential.
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FDI versus exports: Evidence from German banks
Claudia M. Buch, A. Lipponer
Journal of Banking and Finance,
No. 3,
2007
Abstract
We use a new bank-level dataset to study the FDI-versus-exports decision for German banks. We extend the literature on multinational firms in two directions. First, we simultaneously study FDI and the export of cross-border financial services. Second, we test recent theories on multinational firms which show the importance of firm heterogeneity [Helpman, E., Melitz, M.J., Yeaple, S.R., 2004. Export versus FDI. American Economic Review 94 (1), 300–316]. Our results show that FDI and cross-border services are complements rather than substitutes. Heterogeneity of banks has a significant impact on the internationalization decision. More profitable and larger banks are more likely to expand internationally than smaller banks. They have more extensive foreign activities, and they are more likely to engage in FDI in addition to cross-border financial services.
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Where enterprises lead, people follow? Links between migration and FDI in Germany
Claudia M. Buch, J. Kleinert, Farid Toubal
European Economic Review,
No. 8,
2006
Abstract
Standard neoclassical models of economic integration are based on the assumptions that capital and labor are substitutes and that the geography of factor market integration does not matter. Yet, these two assumptions are violated if agglomeration forces among factors from specific source countries are at work. Agglomeration implies that factors behave as complements and that the country of origin matters. This paper analyzes agglomeration between capital and labor empirically. We use state-level German data to answer the question whether and how migration and foreign direct investment (FDI) are linked. Stocks of inward FDI and of immigrants have similar determinants, and the geography of factor market integration matters. There are higher stocks of inward FDI in German states hosting a large foreign population from the same country of origin. This agglomeration effect is confined to higher-income source countries.
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Under which conditions do inland suppliers profit from foreign direct investment?
Björn Jindra, Johannes Stephan
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 10,
2006
Abstract
Aus theoretischer Sicht ergeben sich durch die Präsenz ausländischer Unternehmen nicht nur realwirtschaftliche Effekte auf Produktion und Beschäftigung, sondern auch ein Potential für technologische Entwicklung durch Wissenstransfer zu einheimischen Unternehmen. Dieser Wissenstransfer ist abhängig von dem Grad der Verflechtung des ausländischen Unternehmens mit der einheimischen Wirtschaft. Dabei kommt der Beziehung zwischen Investor und einheimischen Zulieferunternehmen eine zentrale Bedeutung zu, denn multinationale Unternehmen haben ein strategisches Interesse, alle lokalen Effizienzvorteile auszuschöpfen. Der vorliegende Beitrag unterstellt, daß sowohl die Ausbildung von Zulieferbeziehungen als auch das Potential für Wissenstransfer zum einen von organisatorischen Faktoren im ausländischen Unternehmen und zum anderen von der lokalen Wissensbasis und der technologischen Leistungsfähigkeit abhängig sind. Dieser Zusammenhang wird an Hand eines Datensatzes von 434 Tochterunternehmen aus fünf Mittel- und Osteuropäischen Ländern getestet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß die Intensität von Zulieferbeziehungen als auch das Potential für Wissenstransfer steigt, wenn Tochterunternehmen als Joint Venture geführt werden sowie Eigenverantwortung in den Bereichen Logistik und Zulieferung besitzen. Die technologische Leistungsfähigkeit des heimischen Sektors fördert sowohl die Intensität von Zulieferbeziehungen als auch das Potential für Wissenstransfer. Zusätzlich steigert die absorptive Kapazität der einheimischen Zulieferbetriebe das Potential für Wissenstransfer. Will man verhindern, daß ausländische Investitionen auf einer „Insel“ inmitten der einheimischen Wirtschaft operieren und keine Wissenseffekte generieren, dann bietet die Förderung von Forschungs- und Entwicklungskooperationen zwischen ausländischen Investoren und lokalen Zulieferbetrieben in technologisch leistungsfähigen Sektoren ein opportunes Mittel.
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Can EU Policy Intervention Help Productivity Catch-Up?
Johannes Stephan, P. Holmes, J. Lopez-Gonzales, C. Stolberg
Closing the EU East-West Productivity Gap - Foreign direct Investment, Competitiveness, and Public Policy,
2006
Abstract
"A product of the Framework V research project, this book addresses one of the key problems facing the EU today: Why is the ‘new’ EU so much poorer than the ‘old’, and how will EU enlargement help to solve the problem? Focusing on the productivity problems underlying the East-West gap, it looks in particular at the role that foreign investment and R&D can play in closing it. Against that background, the book assesses what role proactive development policy might play in attacking the roots of low social productivity. Concluding that there will be a clear-cut process of convergence between East and West, albeit an incomplete one, it finishes with an assessment of the patterns of competitiveness, East and West, that are likely to emerge from this process of incomplete convergence."
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Direktinvestitionen in der Zwischenkriegszeit und nach 1990 - erste Ergebnisse eines nicht ganz einfachen Vergleichs
Jutta Günther, Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast
Willkommene Investoren oder nationaler Ausverkauf?: Ausländische Direktinvestitionen in Ostmitteleuropa im 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurter Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Ostmitteleuropas, Band 11,
2006
Abstract
Foreign direct investments have a long tradition in Central East European countries and reached a considerable level already during the interwar period. From an economic point of view, Central Eastern Europe strongly depends on foreign investments - today like in the interwar period. Technological backwardness and a lack of internal sources of capital hampered the development of a self-sufficient economy in the newly founded states of Central Eastern Europe after the First World War as well as after the breakdown of socialism. Nevertheless, foreign direct investment has always been subject to a critical debate too in the host economies. Focusing on a comparison between Poland, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, and Hungary, the book deals with the continuities and changes of foreign direct investments in Central Eastern Europe - an issue that has been widely neglected in historical research so far.
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Clustering or Competition? The Foreign Investment Behavior of German Banks
Claudia M. Buch, A. Lipponer
International Journal of Central Banking,
2006
Abstract
Banks often concentrate their foreign direct investment (FDI) in certain countries. This clustering of activities could reflect either the attractiveness of a particular country or agglomeration effects. To find out which of the two phenomena dominates, we need to control for country-specific factors. We use new bank-level data on German banks’ FDI for the 1996-2003 period.We test whether the presence of other banks has a positive impact on the entry of new banks. Once we control for the attractiveness of a country through fixed effects, the negative impact of competition dominates. Hence, pure clustering effects are rather unimportant.
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The Potentials for Technology Transfer via Foreign Direct Investement in Central and East Europe - Results of a Field Study
Judit Hamar, Johannes Stephan
East-West Journal of Economics and Business,
1 & 2
2005
Abstract
Foreign direct investment plays a particularly crucial role for the processes of technological catch-up in Central East Europe. Whilst most countries of this region have received considerable direct investments, the composition of kinds of subsidiaries is different between countries and hence will the prospects for intense technology transfer also differ between countries. This contribution aims to compare the potentials for internal and external technology transfer across countries of Central East Europe by analysing the management-relationship between subsidiaries and their parents and the market-relationships between subsidiaries and their host economy. For this, a firm-level database of some 458 subsidiaries in Estonia, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia is analysed empirically.
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Technology Transfer via Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe: Theory, Method of Research and Empirical Evidence
Johannes Stephan
Technology Transfer via Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe: Theory, Method of Research and Empirical Evidence,
2005
Abstract
Foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies are suggested as one of the main channels of technology transfer to less developed economies. In Central East Europe their presence proved to be a decisive factor to economic restructuring and development. This volume is a unique guide to theory, method of research, and empirical evidence, for technology transfer via foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies. It combines the merits of a core text on technology transfer via FDI with up-to-date empirical evidence.
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