Austria's Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe: 'Supply Based' or 'Market Driven'?

Wilfried Altzinger (altzing@wu.ac.at)

Department of Economics Working Papers from Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics

Abstract: Since 1989 Austria's investment activities in Central and Eastern Europe has intensified. Investments are concentrated in adjacent countries. Geographical proximity and close historical and cultural ties have enabled even small and medium-sized Austrian enterprises to achieve a 'first mover advantage'. Investments have been performed to a large extent in industries that are typically not connected with outsourcing activities (trade, finance and insurance, construction). Market-driven factors and strategic considerations are the ultimate objective of these investments. Only a few sectors, in particular a so-called 'core' industrial sector (metal products, mechanical products, electrical and electronic equipment), indicate that low labour costs are of importance. Trade and sales data of the affiliates support the dominance of the local market. Whilst on average 66% of the affiliates output was sold locally this share was only 39% for the 'core' industrial sector. This sector indicates particular patterns of relocation. Nevertheless, until now this part of Austria's FDI has only been of minor importance.

Keywords: FDI; trade; internationalisation; SMEs; Central and Eastern Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 F21 F23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998-04
Note: PDF Document
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/inst/vw1/papers/wu-wp57.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/inst/vw1/papers/wu-wp57.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.wu.ac.at/inst/vw1/papers/wu-wp57.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Austria's foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern Europe. "supply based" or "market driven"? (1998)
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:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp057

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Economics Working Papers from Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Department of Economics (economics@wu.ac.at).