Distance to the Efficiency Frontier and FDI Spillovers

Klara Sabirianova Peter (), Jan Svejnar and Katherine Terrell

No 1332, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We establish that domestically owned firms in two alternative models of emerging market economies, the Czech Republic and Russia, have not been converging to the technological frontier set by foreign owned firms. In both countries, the distance of domestic firms to the frontier grew (in all parts of the distribution) from 1992-1994 to 1995-1997 and did not change from 1995-1997 to 1998-2000. However, the distance to the frontier is orders of magnitude greater in Russia than in the Czech Republic throughout 1992-2000. We also find in both countries that domestic firms in industries with a greater share of foreign firms are falling behind more than domestic firms in industries with a smaller foreign presence. However, in the Czech Republic this “negative spillover” effect is diminished over time, whereas in Russia it continues to cause domestic firms to fall further behind. On the other hand, we find in both countries that foreign firms experience positive spillovers from other foreign firms operating in the same product market. This evidence on the dynamics of efficiency is consistent with the view that economies (firms) need to be more technologically advanced and open to competition in order to be able to gain from foreign presence.

Keywords: knowledge spillovers; productivity; foreign direct investment; convergence; frontier; Czech Republic; Russia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 D20 F23 G32 L20 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2004-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ifn and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2005, 3 (2-3), 291–302

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Related works:
Working Paper: Distance to the Efficiency Frontier and FDI Spillovers (2004)
Working Paper: Distance to the Efficiency Frontier and FDI Spillovers (2004)
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