IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/wptemi/td_769_10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does investing abroad reduce domestic activity? Evidence from Italian manufacturing firms

Author

Listed:
  • Raffaello Bronzini

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether domestic and foreign activities of Italian firms are mainly substitutes or complements. We take advantage of a unique firm-level panel data set from the Bank of Italy Survey of Industrial and Service Firms, which provides information on the international activity of a representative sample of Italian enterprises. We use matching methods to compare the performance of firms that become multinationals with that of firms that had considered the possibility to invest abroad, but had not yet done so. Using a different approach, we supplement the counterfactual strategy by studying the conditional over-time correlation between domestic and foreign employment of a sample of multinational firms. Both methods suggest that domestic and foreign activities are more likely to be complements than substitutes. The positive correlation between domestic and foreign employment is higher for the domestic highly-skilled workforce and for firms that have adopted complex strategies of internationalization.

Suggested Citation

  • Raffaello Bronzini, 2010. "Does investing abroad reduce domestic activity? Evidence from Italian manufacturing firms," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 769, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
  • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_769_10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2010/2010-0769/en_tema_769.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blomstrom, Magnus & Fors, Gunnar & Lipsey, Robert E, 1997. "Foreign Direct Investment and Employment: Home Country Experience in the United States and Sweden," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(445), pages 1787-1797, November.
    2. Giorgio Barba Navaretti & Davide Castellani & Anne-Célia Disdier, 2010. "How does investing in cheap labour countries affect performance at home? Firm-level evidence from France and Italy," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 234-260, April.
    3. De Loecker, Jan, 2007. "Do exports generate higher productivity? Evidence from Slovenia," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 69-98, September.
    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. Ferragina Anna Maria & Colacurcio Claudio, 2015. "Italian FDI and Exports at Sectoral Level: Substitutes or Complements?," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 277-310, July.
    2. Alessandro Borin & Michele Mancini, 2016. "Foreign direct investment and firm performance: an empirical analysis of Italian firms," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(4), pages 705-732, November.
    3. Riccardo Cristadoro & Leandro D�Aurizio, 2015. "The Italian Firms� International Activity," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 261, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    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. Aleksandra Parteka & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2013. "The Impact of Trade Integration with the European Union on Productivity in a Posttransition Economy: The Case of Polish Manufacturing Sectors," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 84-104, March.
    2. Blanas, Sotiris, 2012. "Intra-firm trade and employment in US manufacturing," Kiel Advanced Studies Working Papers 458, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Cesare Imbriani & Rosanna Pittiglio & Filippo Reganati, 2014. "Affiliates and parent employment through foreign direct investment: a study case of substitutability or complementarity," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 619-638, December.
    4. Hayakawa Kazunobu, 2015. "Impacts of FTA Utilization on Firm Performance," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 1325-1352, July.
    5. René Belderbos & Kyoji Fukao & Keiko Ito & Wilko Letterie, 2013. "Global Fixed Capital Investment by Multinational Firms," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(318), pages 274-299, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Matsuura, Toshiyuki & Motohashi, Kazuyuki & Obashi, Ayako, 2013. "Two-dimensional analysis of the impact of outward FDI on performance at home: Evidence from Japanese manufacturing firms," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 25-33.
    8. Koray Aktas & Valeria Gattai, 2021. "Inward FDI, outward FDI, and firm-level performance in India," Working Papers 481, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2021.
    9. Valeria Gattai, 2015. "Internationalisation and performance at the firm-level: what we learn from Italy," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 42(4), pages 475-509, December.
    10. Valeria Gattai & Giorgia Sali, 2016. "FDI and heterogeneous performance of European enterprises," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 43(1), pages 25-65, March.
    11. Liao, Hongwei & Yang, Liangping & Dai, Shuanping & Van Assche, Ari, 2021. "Outward FDI, industrial structure upgrading and domestic employment: empirical evidence from the Chinese economy and the belt and road initiative," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. ITO Keiko & TANAKA Ayumu, 2014. "The Impact of Multinationals' Overseas Expansion on Employment at Suppliers at Home: New evidence from firm-level transaction relationship data for Japan," Discussion papers 14011, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Keiko Ito & Ayumu Tanaka, . "Expansion of Overeas Production and the Impact on Employment in Domestic Supporting Industries: An Empirical Analysis Based on Buyer-Supplier Transaction Relationships," Chapters, in: Chine Hee HAHN & Dionisius Narjoko (ed.), Impact of Globalization on Labor Market, chapter 9, pages 232-284, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    14. Donatella Baiardi & Valeria Gattai & Piergiovanna Natale, 2021. "Estimating the ex‐ante and the ex‐post effects of Chinese outward FDI," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(12), pages 3641-3673, December.
    15. Tsou, Meng-Wen & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K. & Chang, Ching-Fu, 2013. "The impact of foreign direct investment in China on employment adjustments in Taiwan: Evidence from matched employer–employee data," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25, pages 68-79.
    16. Chin Hee Hahn & Yong-Seok Choi & Sadayuki Takii & Dionisius Narjoko & Rafaelita M. Aldaba & Shandre M. Thangavelu & Archanun Kohpaiboon & Juthathip Jongwanich & Alfons Palangkaraya & Cassey Lee & Keik, . "Impact of Globalization on Labor Market," Books, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), number 2012-rpr-04 edited by Chine Hee HAHN & Dionisius Narjoko, December.
    17. Lucyna Kornecki & Vedapuri Raghavan, 2011. "Inward FDI Stock and Growth in Central and Eastern Europe," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 1, pages 19-30, February.
    18. Geoffrey Barrows & Hélène Ollivier & Ariell Reshef, 2023. "Production Function Estimation with Multi-Destination Firms," CESifo Working Paper Series 10716, CESifo.
    19. Ricardo A. Lopez, 2007. "Exports and Productivity – Comparable Evidence for 14 Countries," CAEPR Working Papers 2007-028, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    20. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    foreign direct investment; multinational enterprises; matching; delocalization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business
    • L6 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

    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:bdi:wptemi:td_769_10. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.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.