The location strategies of multinationals from emerging countries in the EU regions

Riccardo Crescenzi, Carlo Pietrobelli and Roberta Rabellotti

No 2015-009, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper contributes to the current debate in both Economic Geography and International Business on the nature and strategies of Multinational Enterprises MNEs from emerging countries EMNEs. The paper fills a very relevant gap in the existing literature by shedding new light on the location strategies of EMNEs at the national and regional level, looking at their investment drivers and systematically comparing them with those of multinationals from advanced countries AMNEs. The empirical analysis looks at the location choices of MNEs in the European Union EU-25 regions and unveils that EMNEs follow distinctive location strategies. Their attraction into large regional markets is similar to AMNEs as well as their irresponsiveness to efficiency seeking motives. Conversely, the most knowledge-intensive investments of EMNEs respond mainly to two attraction factors strategic assets in the form of local technological dynamism and the agglomeration of foreign investments in the same business functions. In addition, both the national and the regional levels are simultaneously relevant to EMNEs decisions.

Keywords: International Investment; Long-term Capital Movements; Multinational Firms; International Business; Technological Change; Diffusion Processes; Regional Economic Activity; Regional Development Planning and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F21 F23 O33 R12 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-geo, nep-int and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2015/wp2015-009.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Location Strategies of Multinationals from Emerging Countries in the EU Regions (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2015009

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).