1、 外文翻译 原文 Do Domestic Firms Benefit from Direct Foreign Investment?Evidence from Venezuela Material Source: Journal of Economic Literature Author: Brian J. Aitken and Ann E. Harrison Governments often promote inward foreign investment to encourage technology “spillovers” from foreign to domestic firm
2、s. Using panel data on Venezuelan plants, we find that foreign equity participation is positively correlated with plant productivity (the “own-plant” effect), but this relationship is only robust for small enterprises. We then test for spillovers from joint ventures to plants with no foreign investm
3、ent. Foreign investment negatively affects the productivity of domestically owned plants. The net impact of foreign investment, taking into account these two offsetting effects, is quite small. The gains from foreign investment appear to be entirely captured by joint ventures. In the 1990s,direct fo
4、reign investment (DFI) became the largest single source of external finance for developing countries. In 1997, DFI accounted for about half of all private capital and 40 percent of total capital flows to developing countries. Following the virtual disappearance of commercial bank lending in the 1980
5、s, policy makers in emerging markets eased restrictions on incoming foreign investment. Many countries even tilted the balance by offering special incentives to foreign enterprisesincluding lower income taxes or income tax holidays, import duty exemptions, and subsidies for infrastructure. The ratio
6、nale for this special treatment often stems from the belief that foreign investment generates externalities in the form of technology transfer. Can these subsidies be justified? Apart from the employment and capital inflows which accompany foreign investment, multinational activity may lead to techn
7、ology transfer for domestic firms. If foreign firms introduce new products or processes to the domestic market, domestic firms may benefit from the accelerated diffusion of new technology (David J. Teece, 1977). In some cases, domestic firms may increase productivity simply by observing nearby forei
8、gn firms. In other cases, diffusion may occur from labor turnover as domestic employees move from foreign to domestic firms. Several studies have shown that foreign firms initiate more on-the-job training programs than their domestic counterparts (Ralph B. Edfelt, 1975; Reinaldo Gonclaves, 1986). If
9、 these benefits from foreign investment are not completely internalized by the incoming firm, some type of subsidy could be justified. Case studies present mixed evidence on the role of foreign investment in generating technology transfer to domestic firms. In Mauritius and Bangladesh, studies sugge
10、st that the entry of several foreign firms led to the creation of a booming, domestically owned export industry for textiles (Jong Wong Rhee and Therese Belot, 1989).Edwin Mansfield and Anthony Romeo (1980), however, found that only a few of the 15 multinationals in their survey helped domestic firm
11、s acquire new technology. In a study of 65 subsidiaries in 12 developing countries, Dimitri Germidis (1977) found almost no evidence of technology transfer to local competitors. The lack of spillovers to domestic firms was attributed to a number of factors, including limited hiring of domestic emplo
12、yees in higherlevel positions, very little labor mobility between domestic firms and foreign subsidiaries, limited subcontracting to local firms, no research and development by the subsidiaries, and few incentives by multinationals to diffuse their knowledge to local competitors. Few researchers hav
13、e attempted to go beyond qualitative case study evidence. In this paper, we focus on two questions. First, to what extent do joint ventures or wholly owned foreign subsidiaries (hereafter referred to as “foreign” or “foreign-owned” firms) exhibit higher levels of productivity than their domestic cou
14、nterparts? Second, is there any evidence of technology “spillovers” to domestically owned (“domestic”) firms from these foreign entrants? Using a richer data set, we are able to overcome important data restrictions faced by earlier researchers. In this paper, we use annual census data on over 4,000
15、Venezuelan firms, allowing us to measure the productivity effects of foreign ownership. Previous attempts to measure spillover effects from foreign investment faced a critical identification problem: if foreign investment gravitates towards more productive industries, then the observed correlation b
16、etween the presence of foreign firms and the productivity of domestically owned firms will overstate the positive impact of foreign investment. As a result, one could find evidence of positive spillovers from foreign investment where no spillover occurs. Since we observe the behavior of each plant o
17、ver time, we can control for fixed differences in prod uctivity levels across industries which might affect the level of foreign investment. Our research confirms that these differences are in fact correlated with the pattern of foreign investment, biasing previous results. We present two results. F
18、irst, we find a positive relationship between increased foreign equity participation and plant performance, suggesting that individual plants do benefit from foreign investment. However, the positive own-plant effect is only robust for smaller plants, defined as plants with less than 50 employees. F
19、or large enterprises, the positive effects of foreign investment disappear when plant-specific differences are taken into account. This suggests that foreign investors are investing in the more productive plants. Second, productivity in domestically owned plants declines when foreign investment incr
20、eases. This suggests a negative spillover from foreign to domestic enterprises, which we interpret as a market-stealing effect. If we add up the positive own-plant effect and the negative spillovers, on balance the impact of foreign investment on domestic plant productivity is quite small. In Sectio
21、n I, we begin with a general discussion of the possible benefits as well as the costs of foreign investment.Section II discusses the Venezuelan data.Section III presents the estimation results and Section IV concludes the paper. I. Foreign Investment, Competition, and Technology Spillovers: The Fram
22、ework The so-called “industrial organization” approach to foreign investment in manufacturing suggests that multinationals can compete locally with more informed domestic firms because multinationals possess nontangible productive assets, such as technological know-how, marketing and managing skills
23、, export contacts, coordinated relationships with suppliers and customers, and reputation. Since the assets are almost always gained through experience, they cannot be easily licensed to host country firms, but can be transferred at a reasonable cost to subsidiaries who locate in the host country (T
24、eece, 1977). If multinationals do indeed possess such nontangible assets, then we would expect foreign ownership to increase a firms productivity. In addition, domestically owned firms might benefit from the presence of foreign firms. Workers employed by foreign firms or participating in joint ventu
25、res may accumulate knowledge which is valued outside the firm. As experienced workers leave the foreign firms, this human capital becomes available to domestic firms, raising their measured productivity. Likewise, some firm-specific knowledge of the foreign owners might “spill over” to domestic indu
26、stry as domestic firms are exposed to new products, production and marketing techniques, or receive technical support from upstream or downstream foreign firms. Foreign firms may also act as a stable source of demand for inputs in an industry, which can benefit upstream domestic firms by allowing th
27、em to train and maintain relationships with experienced employees. In all these cases, foreign presence would raise the productivity of domestically owned firms. But foreign presence can also reduce productivity of domestically owned firms, particularly in the short run. If imperfectly competitive f
28、irms face fixed costs of production, a foreign firm with lower marginal costs will have an incentive to increase production relative to its domestic competitor. In this environment, entering foreign firms producing for the local market can draw demand from domestic firms, causing them to cut product
29、ion. The productivity of large enough, net domestic productivity can decline even if the multinational transfers technology or its firm-specific asset to domestic firms. In this paper, we estimate log-linear production functions at the plant level to answer two basic questions: (1) whether foreign e
30、quity participation is associated with an increase in the plants productivity, and (2) whether foreign ownership in an industry affects the productivity of domestically owned firms in the same industryi.e., whether there are positive or negative “spillovers” to domestic enterprises. II. Data Descrip
31、tion The data set employed in this paper was obtained directly from Venezuelas National Statistical Bureau, the Oficina Central de Estadistica e Informatica (OCEI). OCEI conducts an annual survey of industrial plants, known as the Enquesta Industrial. The years covered include 1976 through 1989, wit
32、h the exception of 1980 (the industrial survey is not taken in census years). The industrial survey covers all plants in the formal sector with more than 50 workers, as well as a large sample of smaller plants. For the smaller plants,OCEI calculates the sample weights,permitting aggregation of outpu
33、t and other variables to estimate the importance of foreign investment in the local economy. The number of plants surveyed ranged from a low of 3,955 plants in 1982 to a high of 6,044 plants in 1978. The data set is not a balanced panel; the total number of plants varies across each year of the samp
34、le. The data set contains information on foreign ownership, assets, output, employment, input costs, location, and product destination. DFI_Plant is defined as the percentage of subscribed capital (equity) owned by foreign investors. DFI_Sector is defined as foreign equity participation averaged ove
35、r all plants in the sector, weighted by each plants share in sectoral employment. III. Effects of Foreign Investment on Productivity Our finding of large, negative spillovers from foreign investment to domestic firms is in sharp contrast with previous econometric studies, which generally found posit
36、ive spillovers. Previous researchers typically estimated some variant of equation (1) using across section of industries (rather than plants), where the coefficient on foreign share was interpreted as a measure of spillovers from foreign presence to domestic firms.Using data aggregated at the sector
37、al level, these studies were unable to control for differences in productivity across sectors which might be correlated with, but not caused by, foreign presence. If foreign investors gravitate towards more productive industries, then a specification which fails to control for differences across ind
38、ustries is likely to find a positive association between the share of DFI and the productivity of domestic plants even if no spillovers take place. Overall, the evidence in Table 1 suggests that the positive impact of foreign investment on the productivity of domestically owned firms reported in som
39、e earlier studies is not robust when we control for differences in industry productivity. Foreign investors in Venezuela tend to locate in more productive industries, and increases in foreign investment lead to a decline in the productivity of domestic firms. IV. Conclusion Using a panel of more tha
40、n 4,000 Venezuelan plants between 1976 and 1989, we identify two effects of foreign direct investment domestic enterprises. First, we find that increases in foreign equity participation are correlated with increases in productivity for recipient plants with less than 50 employees, suggesting that th
41、ese plants benefit from the productive advantages of foreign owners. Second, we find that increases in foreign ownership negatively affect the productivity of wholly domestically owned firms in the same industry. These negative effects are large and robust to alternative model specifications. Althou
42、gh previous studies generally found positive effects, we show that these results can be explained by the tendency for multinationals to locate in more productive sectors and to invest in more productive plants. On balance, our evidence suggests that the net effect of foreign ownership on the economy
43、 is quite small. Weighted least-squares estimates suggest that the positive effects for recipient firms slightly outweigh the negative effects on firms that remain domestically owned; other approaches yield a net negative impact of DFI. We conclude that there are benefits from foreign investment, bu
44、t that such benefits appear to be internalized by joint ventures. We find no evidence supporting the existence of technology “spillovers” from foreign firms to domestically owned firms. Our results raise several issues for further re-search. To what extent can the results for Venezuela be extended t
45、o other developing countries? The level of foreign investment in Venezuela might be too low, or the economy not sufficiently developed or diversified, to receive large benefits from foreign presence. The scope for spillovers might be greater in the export-oriented economies in East Asia. We also ign
46、ore other potential gains from foreign investment, such as increased employment and inflows of capital. Finally, we may fail to capture the long-run effects of DFI. If positive effects are permanent, while the negative effects are transitory, then as unprofitable firms exit, the negative productivit
47、y effects could decline. The productive advantage of foreign ownership might increase the stock of human capital if domestic workers absorb this advantage through training and learning-by-doing. Over long periods of time, this advantage might eventually spill over through labor mobility. However, we
48、 found little evidence that such spillovers occur within our sample. 译文 国内企业受益于外商直接投资吗？来自委内瑞拉的数据 资料来源 :经济文献期刊 作者： 布莱恩艾特肯和安哈里森 政府往往促进外来投资来鼓励技术 从国外到国内企业 的 “溢出效应”。对委内瑞拉的工厂使用面板数据，我们发现，外国资本的参与和工厂生产力（ 下称“自有工厂”的效果）成正相关，但这种关系只适于强劲的小型企业。然后，我们测试在没有外国投资下从合资企业到工厂的技术外溢。外国投资消极地影响了国内所有工厂的生产力。外商投资的净影响，同时考虑到这两个互相抵消的
49、效果，是相当小的。外国投资的收益似乎完全是从合资企业中获取的。 20 世纪 90 年代，外商直接投资（ DFI）成为发展中国家外部资金最大的单一来源。 1997 年，外商直接投资大约一半的所有私人资本和百分之四十的总资本，流入了发展中国家。随着 20 世纪 80 年代的商业银行贷款实际上的消失，决策者 在新兴市场放 宽 了对 外国投资传入 的 限制 。许多国家甚至对外国企业通过提供特殊的激励措施，包括降低所得税或收入免税，进口关税减免，和基础设施的补贴使平衡倾斜。此特殊待遇的理由往往源于相信外国投资以技术转让形式产生的外部性。 这些补贴是合理的吗？除了就业和资本流入伴随着同外国投资，跨国公司的活动可能导致国内企业转让技术。如果外国公司引进国内市场的新产品或流程，国内企业可能受益于新技术加速扩散（戴维 J 蒂斯， 1977）。在某些情况下，国内企业可能会仅仅通过观察附近的外国企业来增加生产率。在其他情况下， 当国内雇员从外国移动向国内企业， 也许 会 从劳工移动率发生扩散 。 一些研究表明，外国公司比国内同行发起更多在职培训计划（拉尔夫乙， 1975 年 ;雷纳尔多， 1986 年）。如果从外商投资获取的利益不是由传入的公司完全内部化，一些类型的补贴是合理的。 本案例利用目前的混
