Technology spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): the active role of MNC subsidiaries in Argentina in the 1990s

By Anabel Marin, Martin Bell. 2006

289 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The usual perspective on technology spillovers from FDI sees the MNC subsidiary as a passive actor. It presumes that the technological superiority that spreads from subsidiaries to other firms in the host economy is initially created outside it by MNC parent companies, and is delivered to subsidiaries via international technology transfer. The role of subsidiaries is little more than to act as a ‘leaky container’ lying between the technology transfer pipeline and the absorption of spillovers by domestic firms. This paper suggests a different model in which a substantial part of the potential for spillover is created within local subsidiaries as a result of their own knowledge-creating and accumulating activities in the host economy. We explore empirically the effects of these activities on technology spillovers from FDI using data for industrial firms in Argentina over the period 1992–96. The analysis suggests that significant results can be obtained incorporating subsidiaries' own technological activities as an explanatory variable of the spillover process.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6eda7d68e03aa538b6fd5ee301e47b5b21afd0ca

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Citations in the corpus

A Meta-Analysis of FDI and Productivity Spillovers in Developing Countries (2017, unknown): “These are: Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippine, South Africa, Thailand, Taiwan, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbab”
Heterogeneous MNC subsidiaries and technological spillovers: Explaining positive and negative effects in India (2010, background): “The combination of these conditions provides the basis for a „pipeline model‟ of spillover effects (Marin and Bell, 2006) in which spillovers of superior technology are supposed to be delivered from MNC parents, via subsidiaries, to domestic firms, but without local subsidiaries mediating in any…”
FDI Spillovers and Time Since Foreign Entry (2014, unknown): “…characteristics include such measures as the absorptive capability of the domestic firms (e.g. Merlevede and Schoors, 2007), as well as the characteristics of foreign affiliates such as technological capability, embeddedness, and autonomy (e.g. Giroud et al., 2012 and Marin and Bell, 2006).”
Innovation and Economic Development (2009, methodology): “Using data from innovation survey in Argentina, Bell and Marin (2004) and Marin and Bell (2006) examined the role of knowledge-generating activities of foreign affiliates for knowledge spillovers.”
Foreign Direct Investment Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation in Chinese Regions: The Role of Regional Industrial Specialization and Diversity (2016, background): “MARIN and BELL (2006) show that knowledge creation activities of multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) subsidiaries generate positive spillovers in their host country, Argentina.”
Does FDI Cause Development? The Ambiguity of the Evidence and Why it Matters (2012, background): “Different kinds of subsidiaries will provide different kinds of potential linkage and spillover effects (Lall and Narula 2004, Marin and Bell 2006, Jindra et al 2009, Castellani and Zanfei 2006, Narula and Dunning 2010).”
Technology transfers, foreign investment and productivity spillovers (2015, background): “…the quality of their inputs or the efficiency with which they are provided due to increased competition for foreign 2 There is also a literature that explores the extent to which the absorptive capacity of firms matters for the realization of spillovers (Giroud et al., 2012; Marin and Bell, 2006).”
Multinational corporations’ economic and human rights impacts on developing countries: a review and research agenda (2014, background): “…the economic impacts of FDI have found that, to be able to generate positive spillovers, local subsidiaries need to be innovative and technologically active (Marin and Bell, 2006; Miozzo and Grimshaw, 2008; Marin and Sasidharan, 2010) as well as entrepreneurial (Marin and Giuliani, 2011).”
Innovation capability building and learning mechanisms in latecomer firms: recent empirical contributions and implications for research (2012, background): “…knowledge assets: (1) efforts in subsidiaries themselves to accumulate a potential base of knowledge that may spill over to local firms (Marin and Bell 2006, Marin and Sasidharan 2008); and (2) efforts in local firms to acquire and absorb elements from that potential knowledge resource.”
Human Mobility and International Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from High-tech Small and Medium Enterprises in an Emerging Market (2010, background): “Foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade have been regarded as the main vehicle for knowledge spillovers (Blalock and Simon, 2009; Blomstrom and Kokko, 1998; Buckley et al., 2002; Grossman and Helpman, 1991; Keller and Yeaple, 2003; Liu and Wang 2003; Liu, Wang and Wei, 2009; Marin and Bell, 2006).”
The multinational enterprise as a source of international knowledge flows: Direct evidence from Italy (2010, background): “This literature stresses the role of the affiliate in technology production rather than merely adaptation, which may result in efficiency-enhancing spillovers deriving directly from the activities of affiliates, rather than seeing them merely as conduits to knowledge and technology developed elsewhe”