IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-08f20001.html

Firm productivity, foreign direct investment and the host-country welfare: trade cost vs. cheap labor

Author

Listed:
  • Arijit Mukherjee

    (University of Nottingham)

Abstract

We show that the relationship between higher productivity of the foreign firm and host country welfare depends on the reason for foreign direct investment (FDI). If the reason for FDI is to get the advantage of cheap labor, higher productivity of the foreign firm may reduce host-country welfare. Higher productivity of the foreign firm always increases host-country welfare if the reason for FDI is to save transportation costs but may reduce it if trade costs consist of tariffs. Thus, the present paper complements the recent literature on international trade that explores the effects of foreign firms' productivities on the incentives for FDI.

Suggested Citation

  • Arijit Mukherjee, 2008. "Firm productivity, foreign direct investment and the host-country welfare: trade cost vs. cheap labor," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(23), pages 1-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-08f20001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2008/Volume6/EB-08F20001A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Kamal Saggi, 2002. "Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and International Technology Transfer: A Survey," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 191-235, September.
    3. James R. MARKUSEN, 2021. "Trade And The Gains From Trade With Imperfect Competition," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 14, pages 303-323, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Arijit Mukherjee, 2007. "Firm heterogeneity, foreign direct investment and the host-country welfare: Trade costs vs. cheap labor," Discussion Papers 07/05, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    5. Head, Keith & Ries, John, 2003. "Heterogeneity and the FDI versus export decision of Japanese manufacturers," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 448-467, December.
    6. Brander, James A., 1981. "Intra-industry trade in identical commodities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, February.
    7. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leitão, Nuno Carlos, 2012. "Foreign direct investment and globalization," MPRA Paper 37436, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:6:y:2008:i:23:p:1-8 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm & Iyer, Harish, 2021. "Effect of Aid for Trade and Foreign Direct Investment Inflows on the Utilization of Unilateral Trade Preferences offered by the QUAD countries," EconStor Preprints 238211, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. Miguel Ricaurte & Katherine Schmeiser, 2009. "FDI vs. Exports: Accounting for Differences in Export-Sales Intensities," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 523, Central Bank of Chile.
    4. Ayesha Ashraf & Dierk Herzer & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2016. "The Effects of Greenfield FDI and Cross-border M&As on Total Factor Productivity," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(11), pages 1728-1755, November.
    5. Spiros Bougheas & Holger Görg, 2008. "Organizational Forms for Global Engagement of Firms," Discussion Papers 08/33, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    6. Harald Oberhofer & Michael Pfaffermayr, "undated". "FDI versus Exports. Substitutes or Complements? A Three Nation Model and Empirical Evidence," Working Papers 2007-28, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. Onur A. Koska & Ngo Van Long & Frank Stähler, 2018. "Foreign direct investment as a signal," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 60-83, February.
    8. Okubo, Toshihiro & Watabe, Yuta, 2023. "Networked FDI and third-country intra-firm trade," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 591-606.
    9. Tsai, Yingyi & Mukherjee, Arijit & Chen, Jong-Rong, 2016. "Host market competition, foreign FDI and domestic welfare," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 13-22.
    10. Yasuyuki Todo, 2011. "Quantitative Evaluation of the Determinants of Export and FDI: Firm‐level Evidence from Japan," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 355-381, March.
    11. Hongshik Lee, 2010. "Decision To Invest Abroad: The Case Of South Korean Multinationals," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 281-302, May.
    12. Bauer, Christian J. & Langenmayr, Dominika, 2013. "Sorting into outsourcing: Are profits taxed at a gorilla's arm's length?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 326-336.
    13. Marti, Josep & Alguacil, Maite & Orts, Vicente, 2015. "Firm Heterogeneity and Location Choice of European Multinationals," MPRA Paper 62596, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Richard Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2014. "Networked FDI: Sales and Sourcing Patterns of Japanese Foreign Affiliates," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(8), pages 1051-1080, August.
    15. Conconi, Paola & Sapir, André & Zanardi, Maurizio, 2016. "The internationalization process of firms: From exports to FDI," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 16-30.
    16. Paolo Epifani, 2003. "Trade liberalization, Firm Performances and Labor Market Outcomes in the Developing World, what Can We Learn From Micro-Level Data?," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 455-486.
    17. Richard Harris & Qian Cher Li, 2007. "Learning-by-Exporting? Firm-Level Evidence for UK Manufacturing and Services Sectors," Working Papers 2007_22, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    18. Rigby, David L. & Kemeny, Thomas & Cooke, Abigail, 2017. "Plant exit and U.S. imports from low-wage countries," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 27-40.
    19. Andrzej Cieślik, 2015. "Imperfect competition, productivity differences and proximity concentration trade-offs," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 40.
    20. Giordano Mion & Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Kristian Behrens, 2008. "Industry reallocations in a globalizing economy," ECONOMIA E POLITICA INDUSTRIALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2008(4), pages 51-63.
    21. Lorenzo Casaburi & Valeria Gattai, 2009. "Why FDI? An Empirical Assessment Based on Contractual Incompleteness and Dissipation of Intangible Assets," Working Papers 164, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2009.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business
    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-08f20001. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.