IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nzt/nztwps/14-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Earnings and Employment in Foreign-owned Firms

Author

Listed:
  • David C Mare
  • Lynda Sanderson
  • Richard Fabling

    (The Treasury)

Abstract

This paper examines remuneration and labour mobility patterns among workers in foreign-owned firms operating in New Zealand. By tracking workers as they move across jobs in different types of firms, we document the extent of the “foreign wage premium” distinguishing between compositional factors (eg, differences in industry and employment composition across foreign and domestic firms) and remaining differences in wage levels and growth rates. We find that much of the average earnings gap between foreign- and domestically-owned firms is due to compositional factors – foreign firms tend to be larger and employ workers who would have received relatively high wages regardless of where they worked. However, even among apparently similar workers and firms, we find a two to four percent earnings gap between workers in domestic and foreign-owned firms. This gap is primarily associated with a wage increase of around two percent on moving from a domestic to a foreign firm, augmented by higher wage growth among foreign-owned firms. However, these premia appear to be specific to foreign-firm employment, as workers who return to domestically-owned firms do not appear to retain the additional earnings associated with foreign-firm employment into their subsequent jobs. We then consider whether foreign-owned firms source workers differently from other New Zealand firms and whether there are systematic differences in the destinations of departing employees by firm ownership. Although foreign-owned firms do not appear to preferentially hire recent immigrants, employees of foreign owned firms are more geographically mobile within New Zealand than comparable workers in domestically owned firms, and are more likely to emigrate within a year of leaving their job.

Suggested Citation

  • David C Mare & Lynda Sanderson & Richard Fabling, 2014. "Earnings and Employment in Foreign-owned Firms," Treasury Working Paper Series 14/16, New Zealand Treasury.
  • Handle: RePEc:nzt:nztwps:14/16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2014-11/wp-14-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Taylor, Karl & Driffield, Nigel, 2005. "Wage inequality and the role of multinationals: evidence from UK panel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 223-249, April.
    2. John W. Budd & Jozef Konings & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2005. "Wages and International Rent Sharing in Multinational Firms," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 73-84, February.
    3. John Addison & Mário Centeno & Pedro Portugal, 2009. "Do Reservation Wages Really Decline? Some International Evidence on the Determinants of Reservation Wages," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 1-8, March.
    4. Devine, T. J. & Kiefer, N. M., 1995. "The empirical status of job search theory," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 101-101, March.
    5. Ragnhild Balsvik, 2011. "Is Labor Mobility a Channel for Spillovers from Multinationals? Evidence from Norwegian Manufacturing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 285-297, February.
    6. Fosfuri, Andrea & Motta, Massimo & Ronde, Thomas, 2001. "Foreign direct investment and spillovers through workers' mobility," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 205-222, February.
    7. Heyman, Fredrik & Sjoholm, Fredrik & Tingvall, Patrik Gustavsson, 2007. "Is there really a foreign ownership wage premium? Evidence from matched employer-employee data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 355-376, November.
    8. Sourafel Girma & Holger Görg, 2016. "Evaluating the foreign ownership wage premium using a difference-in-differences matching approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 2, pages 17-32, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Hanna Pesola, 2011. "Labour Mobility and Returns to Experience in Foreign Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(3), pages 637-664, September.
    10. Simona Iammarino & Philip McCann, 2013. "Multinationals and Economic Geography," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15181.
    11. Nikolaj Malchow-Møller & James R. Markusen & Bertel Schjerning, 2013. "Foreign Firms, Domestic Wages," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(2), pages 292-325, April.
    12. Holger Görg & Eric Strobl, 2016. "Spillovers from Foreign Firms through Worker Mobility: An Empirical Investigation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT, chapter 13, pages 243-259, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Mark E. Doms & J . Bradford Jensen, 1998. "Comparing Wages, Skills, and Productivity between Domestically and Foreign-Owned Manufacturing Establishments in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Geography and Ownership as Bases for Economic Accounting, pages 235-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kristiina Huttunen, 2007. "The Effect of Foreign Acquisition on Employment and Wages: Evidence from Finnish Establishments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 497-509, August.
    15. Martyn Andrews & Lutz Bellmann & Thorsten Schank & Richard Upward, 2009. "The takeover and selection effects of foreign-owned establishments: an analysis using linked employer–employee data," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(2), pages 293-317, July.
    16. James R. Markusen, 1995. "The Boundaries of Multinational Enterprises and the Theory of International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 169-189, Spring.
    17. Lynda Sanderson, 2013. "Sources of international investment data in the Longitudinal Business Database," Working Papers 13_15, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    18. Holger Görg & Eric Strobl & Frank Walsh, 2016. "Why Do Foreign-Owned Firms Pay More? The Role of On-the-Job Training," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 3, pages 33-51, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Kenneth R. Troske, 1999. "Evidence On The Employer Size-Wage Premium From Worker-Establishment Matched Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 15-26, February.
    20. Jennifer P. Poole, 2013. "Knowledge Transfers from Multinational to Domestic Firms: Evidence from Worker Mobility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 393-406, May.
    21. Hijzen, Alexander & Martins, Pedro S. & Schank, Thorsten & Upward, Richard, 2013. "Foreign-owned firms around the world: A comparative analysis of wages and employment at the micro-level," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 170-188.
    22. Holger Görg & Eric Strobl, 2016. "‘Footloose’ Multinationals?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 6, pages 95-113, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    23. Amy Jocelyn Glass & Kamal Saggi, 2002. "Multinational Firms and Technology Transfer," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(4), pages 495-513, December.
    24. 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.
    25. Robert E. Baldwin & Robert E. Lipsey & J. David Richardson, 1998. "Geography and Ownership as Bases for Economic Accounting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bald98-1, October.
    26. John H. Dunning & Sarianna M. Lundan, 2008. "Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy, Second Edition," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3215.
    27. Hartmut Egger & Udo Kreickemeier, 2017. "Why Foreign Ownership May be Good for You," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Trade and Labor Markets Welfare, Inequality and Unemployment, chapter 13, pages 381-421, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    28. Holger Görg & Eric Strobl & Frank Walsh, 2007. "Why Do Foreign Firms Pay More: The Role of On-the-Job-Training," Open Access publications 10197/8053, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    29. Robert E. Lipsey, 2004. "Home- and Host-Country Effects of Foreign Direct Investment," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics, pages 333-379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Nigel Driffield & James H Love, 2007. "Linking FDI motivation and host economy productivity effects: conceptual and empirical analysis," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(3), pages 460-473, May.
    31. Richard Fabling & Lynda Sanderson, 2014. "Foreign acquisition and the performance of New Zealand firms," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 1-20, April.
    32. John Addison & Mário Centeno & Pedro Portugal, 2009. "Do Reservation Wages Really Decline? Some International Evidence on the Determinants of Reservation Wages," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 1-8, March.
    33. Lawrence F. Katz & Lawrence H. Summers, 1989. "Industry Rents: Evidence and Implications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(1989 Micr), pages 209-290.
    34. Andrew B. Bernard & Fredrik Sjoholm, 2003. "Foreign Owners and Plant Survival," NBER Working Papers 10039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Papps, Kerry L. & Newell, James O., 2002. "Identifying Functional Labour Market Areas in New Zealand: A Reconnaissance Study Using Travel-to-Work Data," IZA Discussion Papers 443, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Richard Fabling & Lynda Sanderson, 2016. "A Rough Guide to New Zealand's Longitudinal Business Database (2nd edition)," Working Papers 16_03, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    2. David C Maré & Trinh Le & Richard Fabling & Nathan Chappell, 2017. "Productivity and the Allocation of Skills," Working Papers 17_04, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    3. Lynda Sanderson, 2013. "Sources of international investment data in the Longitudinal Business Database," Treasury Working Paper Series 13/31, New Zealand Treasury.
    4. Richard Fabling & David C Maré, 2015. "Addressing the absence of hours information in linked employer-employee data," Working Papers 15_17, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

    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. Cagatay Bircan, 2013. "Foreign direct investment and wages: does the level of ownership matter?," Working Papers 157, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Office of the Chief Economist.
    2. Sourafel Girma & Holger Görg & Erasmus Kersting, 2019. "Which boats are lifted by a foreign tide? Direct and indirect wage effects of foreign ownership," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(6), pages 923-947, August.
    3. Nikolaj Malchow-Møller & James R. Markusen & Bertel Schjerning, 2013. "Foreign Firms, Domestic Wages," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(2), pages 292-325, April.
    4. Uros Delevic & James Kennell, 2022. "Multinationals And Wages: Evidence From Employer–Employee Data In Serbia," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 67(232), pages 49-80, January –.
    5. Blanas, Sotiris. & Seric, Adnan. & Viegelahn, Christian,, 2017. "Jobs, FDI and institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa evidence from firm-level data," ILO Working Papers 994987491902676, International Labour Organization.
    6. Sotiris Blanas & Adnan Seric & Christian Viegelahn, 2019. "Job Quality, FDI and Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(5), pages 1287-1317, December.
    7. Ayumu Tanaka, 2018. "Why Do Exporters and Multinational Firms Pay Higher Wages?:Evidence from Japanese Linked Employer–Employee Data," Discussion papers e-17-013, Graduate School of Economics , Kyoto University.
    8. TANAKA Ayumu, 2015. "Wage Premiums for Exporters and Multinational Enterprises: Evidence from Japanese linked employer-employee data," Discussion papers 15106, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    9. Gianluca Orefice & Nicholas Sly & Farid Toubal, 2021. "Cross-Border Merger and Acquisition Activity and Wage Dynamics," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 131-162, January.
    10. Ayumu Tanaka, 2022. "Higher wages in exporters and multinational firms evidence from linked employer–employee data," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 51-78, February.
    11. Hartmut Egger & Udo Kreickemeier, 2017. "Why Foreign Ownership May be Good for You," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Trade and Labor Markets Welfare, Inequality and Unemployment, chapter 13, pages 381-421, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Hartmut Egger & Elke Jahn & Stefan Kornitzky, 2020. "Reassessing the foreign ownership wage premium in Germany," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 302-325, February.
    13. Richard Fabling & Lynda Sanderson, 2014. "Foreign acquisition and the performance of New Zealand firms," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 1-20, April.
    14. Gianluca Orefice & Nicholas Sly & Farid Toubal, 2015. "The Multinational Wage Premium and Wage Dynamics," CESifo Working Paper Series 5263, CESifo.
    15. Khadija Straaten & Niccolò Pisani & Ans Kolk, 2020. "Unraveling the MNE wage premium," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(9), pages 1355-1390, December.
    16. Sándor Csengödi & Dieter M. Urban, 2008. "Foreign Takeovers and Wage Dispersion in Hungary," CESifo Working Paper Series 2188, CESifo.
    17. Heyman, Fredrik & Sjoholm, Fredrik & Tingvall, Patrik Gustavsson, 2007. "Is there really a foreign ownership wage premium? Evidence from matched employer-employee data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 355-376, November.
    18. Fiedler, Salomon & Görg, Holger & Hornok, Cecília & Jannsen, Nils & Kooths, Stefan & Marchal, Léa & Potjagailo, Galina, 2018. "Direktinvestitionen im Ausland - Effekte auf die deutsche Leistungsbilanz und Spillovers in den Empfängerländern," Kieler Beiträge zur Wirtschaftspolitik 16, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Müller, Patrick, 2021. "Impacts of inward FDIs and ICT penetration on the industrialisation of Sub-Saharan African countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 265-279.
    20. Ding, Ding, 2015. "Leaning from multinational companies through hiring: An empirical investigation," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 402, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign direct investment (FDI); Earnings; Labour mobility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nzt:nztwps:14/16. 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: CSS Web and Publishing, The Treasury (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tregvnz.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.