Does It Matter Where You ComeFrom? Vertical Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment andthe Nationality of Investors

Javorcik, Beata Smarzynska ; Saggi, Kamal ; Spatareanu, Mariana

World Bank, Washington, D.C.

关键词: SPILLOVERS;    FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT;    TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER;    FOREIGN INVESTORS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3449
RP-ID  :  WPS3449

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The authors use a firm-level panel dataset from Romania to examine whether the nationality offoreign investors affects the degree of vertical spilloversfrom foreign direct investment. Investors' country oforigin may matter for spillovers to domestic producers inupstream sectors (supplying intermediate inputs) in twoways. First, the share of intermediate inputs sourced bymultinationals from a host country is likely to increasewith the distance between the host and the source economy.Second, the sourcing pattern is likely to be affected bypreferential trade agreements that cover some but not othersource economies. In this case, the Association Agreementsigned between Romania and the European Union (EU) impliesthat inputs sourced from the EU are subject to a lowertariff than inputs sourced from America or Asia. Moreover,while for European investors intermediate inputs sourcedfrom home country suppliers comply with the rules of originand thus can be exported to the EU on preferential terms,this would not be the case for home country suppliers ofAmerican or Asian multinationals. Therefore, one wouldexpect that American and Asian investors source more fromRomania than EU investors and thus present greater potentialfor vertical spillovers. The empirical analysis producesevidence in support of the authors' hypothesis. Theyfind a positive association between the presence of Americanand Asian companies in downstream sectors and theproductivity of Romanian firms in the supplying industries.Further, the productivity of Romanian firms in the supplyingsectors is negatively correlated with operations of Europeaninvestors in downstream sectors. The differences between theeffects associated with investors of different origin arestatistically significant.