شناسایی الگوهای ظاهری سرمایه گذاری مستقیم خارجی: برخی از شواهد تجربی

This paper uses industry level panel data of all Austrian affiliates operating abroad during the period 1992–2005 to investigate the determinants of performance, as reflected by the number of affiliates, their productivity and returns on patents and licenses. The determinants of each performance indicator are found to be different. Moreover, the determinants vary further when the full dataset is disaggregated into manufacturing and service sectors.

Removal of entry barriers, technological advances, increased financial integration as well as more general global processes over the last decade have lead to an increase in the number of companies entering overseas markets. This growth in internationalization is not only a feature of large manufacturing companies; foreign direct investment in the service sector has also grown very rapidly in the last few years. These trends are most evident in the European Union (EU) countries, many of which are characterized by relatively small domestic markets, advanced technology and high R&D investment, resulting in a long tradition of cross-border capital flow (see UNCTAD Investment Report, 2004). One such country is Austria. Although income per capita in Austria has remained high, its performance in productivity and innovation has been near the bottom of EU-15 countries for a long time (see OECD Report, 2005). Among other factors, geographical limits have pushed the Austrian economy to a high level of internationalization. A small country, Austria is close to larger markets such as Germany and Italy, but also to new EU member states such as the Czech Republic and Hungary, which historically have had strong ties to Austria. The central question therefore is how do these issues influence the pattern of Austrian investment abroad? Fig. 1 illustrates the increasing internationalization of Austrian companies during the last 15 years. Furthermore, the number of affiliates in the service sector exceeds the number in the traditional manufacturing sector, the rate of growth in the service sector increasing through time. Among the fastest growing areas of the services sectors are insurance, financial and banking services, where Austrian companies also provide a broad range of domestic services. In making the decision to establish an affiliate abroad, companies have to weigh up the costs and risks of going abroad against both opportunities at home and the option of providing services across borders without creating an affiliate; for example, by means of cross-border lending. Furthermore, Austrian banks have many markets to choose from when deciding to establish a presence abroad. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence to determine what factors influence the companies’ decision to go abroad, into which countries and into which sectors. In particular, the paper will focus on the determinants of growth in terms of the number of affiliates, their productivity, and their returns on patents and licenses in both the manufacturing and service sectors. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: first, the main theoretical concepts are discussed in Section 2; Section 3 will describe data and methodology; and the results will be discussed in Section 4 before concluding in Section 5.

In making the decision to create affiliates abroad, a company has to weigh up the costs and risks of going overseas against both the opportunities available at home, and the option of providing services across borders without establishing a physical presence there. The combination of unique and reliable information on both subsidiaries and headquarters has allowed us to investigate hypotheses related to the main determinants of performance of Austrian affiliates. The findings show that the larger the headquarters in Austria and the more companies are motivated by market-seeking, the greater the probability of higher numbers of Austrian affiliates abroad. The small size of the domestic market in a ‘land-locked’ Austria can be considered as a possible catalyst for the shift of relatively large Austrian firms abroad. However, the size of headquarters does not play a particularly positive role in the productivity of Austrian affiliates abroad. In fact the relationship is negative and significant, even though not very large. A similar pattern of results is apparent in the context of the number of headquarters. Whereas the variable is positively related to the returns on patents and the number of affiliates, it is negatively related to productivity. These results suggest that the greater the size and number of Austrian headquarters in one industry, the more affiliates they open abroad and the greater the returns on innovations they receive, the more likely that the productivity of these affiliates will fall. The capital of the affiliate is positively related to all three dependent variables, suggesting that this plays a crucial and positive role in productivity, as well as in returns on patents and licenses and number of affiliates. There is a spatial dimension to the results. In countries geographically close to Austria, the growth in the number of affiliates is slightly slower than in countries that do not border Austria. However Austrian affiliates are more productive in bordering countries relative to non-neighbours. This might be attributed to the fact that recently established Austrian affiliates tend to be located further east of the EU and its own borders, but do not necessarily perform there better. During the last 15 years the internationalization of Austrian companies has continued to increase, with the number of affiliates in the service sector increasing faster than the manufacturing sector. However, the pattern of growth in the two sectors has been determined by slightly different factors. Those affiliates that operate in manufacturing sectors are more productive if their main motive is market-seeking. For the affiliates in services, the opposite is true. These results suggest different phases of FDI in the two sectors. The manufacturing sector in Austria is more mature and experienced in outward FDI than the service sector, and therefore the affiliates in these sectors face different types of pressure to stay productive. These results are supported by the different role they played in the age variable in the two regressions. Whereas this is both positive and significant in the manufacturing sector regression, it is negative and insignificant in the service sector regressions. The share of SMEs in the number of affiliates and their headquarters are positive and significant for both selected regressions, suggesting that affiliates in both sectors are sensitive to the presence of SMEs in the industry. From a policy perspective this result suggests that for both sectors, the presence of small and medium size affiliates promotes the productivity of other affiliates at this location and attracts other affiliates.