FDIs Productivity Spillovers in Regional Clusters: A Comparison between Poland and Romania

In recent years Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) inflows towards Eastern European countries have progressively increased, further stimulated by the entry of some countries into the European Union. However, the empirical literature finds mixed evidence for the actual occurrence of spillover effects from MNEs. We contribute to this discussion by investigating whether spillover effects occur more frequently in domestic firms located within regional clusters, taking into account the distinction between low-tech and high-tech sectors. Our findings show no evidence that location within regional clusters contributes to firms benefiting from FDIs spillovers. The findings for Romania show that, on the contrary, the productivity of firms located within regional clusters is influenced more negatively by the presence of MNEs than of firms located outside regional clusters. Furthermore, we find that FDIs have, in most cases, negative impact on firm-level productivity, in line with the previous findings of empirical studies on transition countries.