Foreign Direct Investment as a Source of Technology-Spillovers in Central East European Candidate-Countries
Jutta Günther
Erweiterung und Integration der EU. Forschungen zur Europäischen Integration, Band 9,
2004
Abstract
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The Impact of Technology and Regulation on the Geographical Scope of Banking
Hans Degryse, Steven Ongena
Oxford Review of Economic Policy,
No. 4,
2004
Abstract
We review how technological advances and changes in regulation may shape the (future) geographical scope of banking. We first review how both physical distance and the presence of borders currently affect bank lending conditions (loan pricing and credit availability) and market presence (branching and servicing). Next we discuss how technology and regulation have altered this impact and analyse the current state of the European banking sector. We discuss both theoretical contributions and empirical work and highlight open questions along the way. We draw three main lessons from the current theoretical and empirical literature: (i) bank lending to small businesses in Europe may be characterized both by (local) spatial pricing and resilient (regional and/or national) market segmentation; (ii) because of informational asymmetries in the retail market, bank mergers and acquisitions seem the optimal route of entering another market, long before cross-border servicing or direct entry are economically feasible; and (iii) current technological and regulatory developments may, to a large extent, remain impotent in further dismantling the various residual but mutually reinforcing frictions in the retail banking markets in Europe. We conclude the paper by offering pertinent policy recommendations based on these three lessons.
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Technology spillovers from external investors in East Germany: no overall effects in favor of domestic firms
Harald Lehmann, Jutta Günther
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 198,
2004
Abstract
The study deals with the question whether external (foreign and West German) investors in East Germany induce technological spillover effects in favor of domestic firms. It ties in with a number of other econometric spillover studies, especially for transition economies, which show rather mixed and inconclusive results so far. Different from existing spillover analyses, this study allows for a much deeper regional breakdown up to Raumordnungsregionen and uses a branch classification that explicitly considers intermediate and investment good linkages. The regression results show no positive correlation between the presence of external investors and domestic firms’ productivity, no matter which regional breakdown is looked at (East Germany as a whole, federal states, or Raumordnungsregionen). Technology spillovers which may exist in particular cases are obviously not strong enough to increase the domestic firms’ overall productivity.
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Progress reports from the project "Productivity Gap"
Johannes Stephan
Einzelveröffentlichungen,
No. 3,
2004
Abstract
The project assesses the roles played by determinants of productivity gaps between Accession Countries in Central East Europe and the more advanced countries in Western Europe. The focus is on the respective weights of determinants and their influence on the potentials for future productivity catch-up.
The convenient feature about assessing productivity levels is that they inform us about the narrowing or divergence of income gaps, provide an indication of international competitiveness, and the sustainability of growth paths (technological development).
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Is East Germany successful in catching up? An empirical investigation of the technological capability in manufacturing industry
Jutta Günther, Harald Lehmann
VEST Journal for Science and Technology Studies,
No. 1,
2004
Abstract
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Technological capability of foreign and West German investors in East Germany
Jutta Günther
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 189,
2004
Abstract
Foreign direct investment (FDI) plays an important role for countries or regions in the process of economic catching-up since it is assumed – among other things – that FDI brings in new production technology and knowledge. This paper gives an overview about the development of FDI in East Germany based on official data provided by the Federal Bank of Germany. The investigation also includes a comparison of FDI in East Germany to Central East European countries. But the main focus of the paper is an analysis of the technological capability comparing majority foreign and West German owned firms to majority East German owned firms. It shows that foreign and West German subsidiaries in East Germany are indeed characterized by superior technological capability with respect to all indicators looked at (product innovation, research & development, organizational changes etc.).
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Technology spillovers through foreign direct investment. An empirical investigation on the example of Hungarian industry
Jutta Günther
Schriften des IWH,
No. 14,
2003
Abstract
Mit dem Beginn der Transformation in den Ländern Mittelosteuropas nahmen auch die ausländischen Direktinvestitionen rapide zu, wobei die ausländischen Tochtergesellschaften sowohl moderne Produktionstechnik als auch Management-Know-how transferieren. Es stellt sich jedoch immer wieder die Frage, ob und inwiefern auch die einheimischen Unternehmen über Technologie-Spillovers von diesen Entwicklungen profitieren. Die Studie zeigt, über welche Kanäle Technologie-Spillovers theoretisch möglich sind und untersucht dann im Rahmen einer empirischen Feldstudie die Bedeutung und Reichweite sowie die Einflussfaktoren der verschiedenen Spillover-Mechanismen am Beispiel der ungarischen Industrie. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Spillovereffekte in der ungarischen Industrie bisher kaum zustande kamen. Gründe dafür sind insbesondere die erheblichen technologischen Disparitäten zwischen ausländischen Tochtergesellschaften und einheimischen Unternehmen und die sehr niedrige Arbeitskräftemobilität von ausländischen zu einheimischen Firmen.
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Firm-Specific Determinants of Productivity Gaps between East and West German Industrial Branches
Johannes Stephan, Karin Szalai
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 183,
2003
Abstract
Industrial productivity levels of formerly socialist economies in Central East Europe (including East Germany) are considerably lower than in the more mature Western economies. This research aims at assessing the reasons for lower productivities at the firm level: what are the firm-specific determinants of productivity gaps. To assess this, we have conducted an extensive field study and focussed on a selection of two important manufacturing industries, namely machinery manufacturers and furniture manufacturers, and on the construction industry. Using the data generated in field work, we test a set of determinant-candidates which were derived from theory and prior research in that topic. Our analysis uses the simplest version of the matched-pair approach, in which first hypothesis about relevant productivity level-determinants are tested. In a second step, positively tested hypothesis are further assessed in terms of whether they also constitute firm-specific determinants of the apparent gaps between the firms in our Eastern and such in our Western panels. Our results suggest that the quality of human capital plays an important role in all three industrial branches assessed. Amongst manufacturing firms, networking activities and the use of modern technologies for communication are important reasons for the lower levels of labour productivity in the East. The intensity of long-term strategic planning on behalf of the management turned out to be relevant only for machinery manufacturers. Product and process innovations unexpectedly exhibit an ambiguous picture, as did the extent of specialisation on a small number of products in the firms’ portfolio and the intensity of competition.
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Standortbedingungen der Biotechnologiebranche - Eine Analyse zur Identifikation von Erfolgsfaktoren für Biotechnologiefirmen und Bioregionen
Walter Komar
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 176,
2003
Abstract
Im Artikel werden die Faktoren ermittelt, die für den Erfolg von Biotechnologiefirmen und Bioregionen wichtig sind. Dazu werden die Standortbedingungen einer fortgeschrittenen Bioregion mit denen einer nicht so fortgeschrittenen Bioregion in Deutschland in einem Benchmark-Ansatz verglichen. Die signifikanten Erfolgsfaktoren werden mittels logistischer Regression identifiziert. Das Ergebnis ist, dass ein Bündel von Faktoren für den Erfolg von Biotechnologiefirmen und Bioregionen bedeutsam ist. Darin spielen das Humankapitalangebot, Netzwerke und die öffentliche Forschung in der Region eine herausragende Rolle.
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FDI Subsidiaries and Industrial Integration of Central Europe: Conceptual and Empirical Results
Boris Majcen, Slavo Radosevic, Matija Rojec
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 177,
2003
Abstract
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