IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/asiaec/v37y2023i4p519-549.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does outward foreign direct investment improve the performance of domestic firms? Case of Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Soomin Han
  • Sunghyun Kim

Abstract

In this article, we use firm‐level data in Korea from 2010 to 2019 to analyze whether outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) affects the productivity of domestic firms, known as reverse knowledge spillovers. Using propensity score matching and difference‐in‐difference regressions, we verify that OFDI improves the productivity of parent companies. Considering the characteristics of OFDI and the parent company, these positive effects become greater when (1) parent company's absorptive capacity (technology level) is high, (2) OFDI is in the M&A form, and (3) OFDI is toward developed countries. In addition to these direct effects, we investigate whether OFDI improves the productivity of other domestic firms within and across industries, known as horizontal and vertical spillovers. The results demonstrate strong evidence of positive vertical spillovers but not horizontal spillovers. These evidence provide important policy implications about the specifics of outward direct investment that are beneficial to capital‐exporting countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Soomin Han & Sunghyun Kim, 2023. "Does outward foreign direct investment improve the performance of domestic firms? Case of Korea," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 519-549, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:asiaec:v:37:y:2023:i:4:p:519-549
    DOI: 10.1111/asej.12315
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/asej.12315
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/asej.12315?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holger Görg & Aoife Hanley & Eric Strobl, 2008. "Productivity effects of international outsourcing: evidence from plant‐level data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 670-688, May.
    2. Priit Vahter & Jaan Masso, 2007. "Home versus Host Country Effects of FDI: Searching for New Evidence of Productivity Spillovers," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 53(2), pages 165-196.
    3. Hongshik Lee, 2010. "The Destination of Outward FDI and the Performance of South Korean Multinationals," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 59-66, May.
    4. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2004. "Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 300-316, March.
    5. Brian J. Aitken & Ann E. Harrison, 2022. "Do Domestic Firms Benefit from Direct Foreign Investment? Evidence from Venezuela," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 6, pages 139-152, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Huang, Youxing & Zhang, Yan, 2017. "How does outward foreign direct investment enhance firm productivity? A heterogeneous empirical analysis from Chinese manufacturing," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-15.
    7. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Kevin Caves & Garth Frazer, 2015. "Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2411-2451, November.
    8. Beata Smarzynska Javorcik, 2004. "Does Foreign Direct Investment Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms? In Search of Spillovers Through Backward Linkages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 605-627, June.
    9. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2005. "Foreign Direct Investment and the Domestic Capital Stock," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 33-38, May.
    10. John H Dunning, 1980. "Towards an Eclectic Theory of International Production: Some Empirical Tests," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 11(1), pages 9-31, March.
    11. Harri Ramcharran, 2012. "Estimating the Production Efficiency of US Foreign Direct Investment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 273-281, June.
    12. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    13. Sourafel Girma, 2005. "Absorptive Capacity and Productivity Spillovers from FDI: A Threshold Regression Analysis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(3), pages 281-306, June.
    14. Cozza, C. & Rabellotti, R. & Sanfilippo, M., 2015. "The impact of outward FDI on the performance of Chinese firms," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 42-57.
    15. Annette L. Ranft & Michael D. Lord, 2002. "Acquiring New Technologies and Capabilities: A Grounded Model of Acquisition Implementation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(4), pages 420-441, August.
    16. László Halpern & Balázs Muraközy, 2007. "Does distance matter in spillover?1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 15(4), pages 781-805, October.
    17. Hea-Jung Hyun & Yong Joon Jang, 2015. "Comparative Advantage, Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Average Industry Productivity: Theory and Evidence," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 31, pages 327-357.
    18. Andrea Filippetti & Marion Frenzm.frenz & Grazia Ietto-Gillies, 2017. "The impact of internationalization on innovation at countries’ level: the role of absorptive capacity," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 41(2), pages 413-439.
    19. Martin H. Kunc & John D. W. Morecroft, 2010. "Managerial decision making and firm performance under a resource‐based paradigm," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(11), pages 1164-1182, November.
    20. Minjung Kim, 2015. "Productivity spillovers from FDI and the role of domestic firm’s absorptive capacity in South Korean manufacturing industries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 807-827, March.
    21. Bruno Van Pottelsberghe De La Potterie & Frank Lichtenberg, 2001. "Does Foreign Direct Investment Transfer Technology Across Borders?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 490-497, August.
    22. Battese, George E. & Coelli, Tim J., 1988. "Prediction of firm-level technical efficiencies with a generalized frontier production function and panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 387-399, July.
    23. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2005. "Foreign Direct Investment and Domestic Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 11717, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Naveen Rai & Lena Suchanek & Maria Bernier, 2018. "Does Outward Foreign Investment Matter for Canadian Productivity? Evidence from Greenfield Investments," Staff Working Papers 18-31, Bank of Canada.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huang, Youxing & Zhang, Yan, 2017. "How does outward foreign direct investment enhance firm productivity? A heterogeneous empirical analysis from Chinese manufacturing," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-15.
    2. Jitao Tang & Rosanne Altshuler, 2015. "The Spillover Effects Of Outward Foreign Direct Investment On Home Countries: Evidence From The United States," Departmental Working Papers 201501, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    3. Walid Hejazi & Daniel Trefler, 2019. "Implications of Canada’s restrictive FDI policies on employment and productivity," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 2(2), pages 142-166, June.
    4. Bournakis, Ioannis & Papanastassiou, Marina & Papaioannou, Sotiris, 2020. "Multinationals and Domestic TFP: Market Shares, Agglomerations Gains and Foreign Ownership," MPRA Paper 106626, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Li, Linjie & Liu, Xiaming & Yuan, Dong & Yu, Miaojie, 2017. "Does outward FDI generate higher productivity for emerging economy MNEs? – Micro-level evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 839-854.
    6. Hsu, Wen-Tai & Lu, Yi & Luo, Xuan & Zhu, Lianming, 2023. "Foreign direct investment and industrial agglomeration: Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 610-639.
    7. Bricongne, Jean-Charles & Delpeuch, Samuel & Lopez-Forero, Margarita, 2023. "Productivity slowdown and tax havens: Where is measured value creation?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    8. Muhammed BENLI, 2016. "FDI and export spillovers using Heckman’s two step approach: Evidence from Turkish manufacturing data," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(4(609), W), pages 315-342, Winter.
    9. Ioannis Bournakis & Sotiris Papaioannou & Marina Papanastassiou, 2022. "Multinationals and domestic total factor productivity: Competition effects, knowledge spillovers and foreign ownership," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(12), pages 3715-3750, December.
    10. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & Helen Simpson, 2004. "Foreign Ownership and Productivity: New Evidence from the Service Sector and the R&D Lab," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 20(3), pages 440-456, Autumn.
    11. Karolien Lenaerts & Bruno Merlevede, 2015. "Firm size and spillover effects from foreign direct investment: the case of Romania," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 595-611, October.
    12. Neil Foster-McGregor, 2012. "Innovation and Technology Transfer across Countries," wiiw Research Reports 380, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    13. Sara L. McGaughey & Pascalis Raimondos & Lisbeth La Cour, 2018. "What is a Foreign Firm? Implications for Productivity Spillovers," CESifo Working Paper Series 7109, CESifo.
    14. Jean-Charles Bricongne & Samuel Delpeuch & Margarita Lopez Forero, 2021. "Productivity Slowdown, Tax Havens and MNEs’ Intangibles: where is measured value creation?," Documents de recherche 21-01, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.
    15. Maximilian Todtenhaupt & Johannes Voget, 2021. "International Taxation and Productivity Effects of M&As," CESifo Working Paper Series 8967, CESifo.
    16. Jean-Charles Bricongne & Samuel Delpeuch & Margarita Lopez Forero, 2021. "Regional Productivity Slowdown, Tax Havens and MNEs’ Intangibles: where is Measured Value Creation?," Working papers 835, Banque de France.
    17. Hanousek, Jan & Kocenda, Evzen & Maurel, Mathilde, 2011. "Direct and indirect effects of FDI in emerging European markets: A survey and meta-analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 301-322, September.
    18. Wong, Zoey & Chen, Afei & Peng, Dan & Kong, Qunxi, 2022. "Does technology-seeking OFDI improve the productivity of Chinese firms under the COVID-19 pandemic?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    19. Naijela Janaina Costa Silveira & Diogo Ferraz & Eduardo Polloni‐Silva & Diego Scarpa de Mello & Fernanda Pereira Sartori Falguera & Herick Fernando Moralles, 2022. "Modeling the building blocks of country‐level absorptive capacity: Comparing developed and emergent economies," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 783-824, July.
    20. Todtenhaupt, Maximilian & Voget, Johannes, 2021. "International taxation and productivity effects of M&As," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:asiaec:v:37:y:2023:i:4:p:519-549. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.