Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Greenfield versus Merger & Acquisition FDI: Same Wine, Different Bottles?
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2015-02) ; ;
    Relying on a large foreign direct investment (FDI) transaction level dataset, unique both in terms of disaggregation and time and country coverage, this paper examines patterns in greenfield (GF) versus merger & acquisition (MA) investment. Although both are found to seek out large markets with low international barriers, important differences emerge. MA is more affected by geographic and cultural barriers and exhibits opportunistic behaviours as it is more sensitive to short-run changes, such as a currency crisis. On the other hand, GF is relatively driven by long-run factors, such as origincountry technological and institutional development or comparative advantage. These empirical facts are consistent with the conceptual distinction made between these two modes, i.e. MA involves transfer of ownership for integration or arbitrage reasons while GF relies on firms own capacities, which are linked to the origin countries attributes. They also suggest that GF and MA are likely to respond differently to policies intended to attract FDI.
      645
  • Publication
    Export Processing Zones and the Composition of Greenfield FDI
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2018-04) ;
    Export processing zones (EPZs) are an increasingly common type of special economic zone. They are designed to facilitate international trade by lowering trade costs, such as import duties and/or export taxes. EPZs should thus be particularly attractive locations for multinational enterprises engaging in vertical, trade-intensive, foreign direct investment (FDI). Using data on worldwide greenfield FDI projects over the period 2003-2014, we find patterns consistent with this hypothesis. EPZs have a large positive effect on manufacturing FDI projects with a production focus, especially in trade- and labour-intensive sectors. Overall, our results suggest that EPZs are an effective tool to attract manufacturing FDI which exploit the opportunities offered by global value chains.
      232