Multinational Firms and Job Tasks

Katariina Nilsson Hakkala, Fredrik Heyman and Fredrik Sjöholm

No 781, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: We use Swedish matched employer-employee data to analyze the impact of multinational activity and foreign acquisitions on the relative demand for different job tasks. We contribute to the literature by using a conceptualization from the recent literature in international economics and define the division of labor in terms of job tasks. Our econometric results show that multinational firms, both foreign and domestic, are associated with higher shares of non-routine tasks and tasks requiring personal interaction than local firms. Moreover, acquisitions of local firms by both foreign and domestic MNEs tend to increase the relative demand for non-routine and interactive job tasks, i.e. tasks that are not easily offshored. As a comparison, dividing labor according to educational attainment does not capture the found effects on relative labor demand.

Keywords: FDI; Cross-Border Acquisitions; Multinational Enterprises; Foreign Ownership; Job Tasks; Labor Demand; Skill Groups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 F21 F23 J23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2008-12-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Multinational firms and job tasks (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0781

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