能源经济学研讨会（第29期）

【演讲者】Marco Sanfilippo

【题目】Investing abroad from the bottom of theproductivity ladder–BRICS multinationals in Europe

【地点】中国人民大学明德主楼729会议室

【时间】2013年7月3日，星期三， 12:00—13:30

【内容简介】Literature on theinternationalization strategies of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) has so farbeen built on the idea that such firms invest overseas on the basis of thepossession of a superior set of assets compared to domestic firms. So far, thisliterature has mainly focused on the role of developed countries MNEs and nosuch analysis has been done to check the provision of the existing theories onthe group of so--‐called Emerging Multinationals (EMNEs).

Based on a large dataset on foreign affiliates in Europe,this paper aims at measuring the differences in terms of total factorproductivity (TFP) and other indicators of competitiveness of EMNEs from theBRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) against theircounterparts from developed countries and domestic MNEs. This is done by usingdifferent approaches, including cross-- company regressions, quantile analysisand semi--parametric tests based on propensity score matching anddifference--in--difference estimators. If, as suggested by the literature, theearly internationalization strategies of EMNEs are driven by asset--explorationstrategies we expect to find significant differences in their performance,especially when investing in more developed markets.

Indeed, preliminary results show that EMNEs investing inEurope are still at the bottom of the productivity ladder, recording aproductivity gap with more established competitors, including domestic MNEs,especially in higher technology intensive sectors within the manufacturing, theresults proving consistent to the adoption of different indicators and todifferent levels of disaggregation.