Knowledge spillovers from FDI in the People's Republic of China: The role of educated labor in multinational enterprises

This paper employs a firm-level panel data set for a high-tech cluster in the People's Republic of China to examine knowledge spillovers from multinational enterprises (MNEs) to domestic firms, focusing on the role of MNEs' employment of educated workers. We find that knowledge within MNEs spills over to domestic firms in the same industry through MNEs' employment of workers with graduate-level or overseas education. We also find that Japanese MNEs contribute less to knowledge spillovers than United States MNEs. This is most likely due to the fact that Japanese MNEs in the People's Republic of China do not employ as much educated labor.