The ReLOC project: Method report for implementing a cross-border company survey in Germany and the Czech Republic

Economic integration typically goes along with a disintegration of production through outsourcing and offshoring. The consequences of foreign direct investments (FDI) especially for the labour market are an issue of ongoing debate. The countries of origin fear job losses. However, a range of models and studies show that the productivity gains lead to job growth at the domestic plants. Therefore, the direction of the consolidated effect is an open research question. Further topics discussed concern the impact on different qualification groups, their wage levels, job volatility and task structures in companies both in the country of origin and in the target country. The discussion is even more eager where high-wage countries share a common border with low-wage countries. So far, linked international firm-level data to study these effects on both sides of a border are missing. The IAB in cooperation with Czech research partners constructs a cross-border data set by conducting an empirical research project on the interface between old and new EU member states. It focuses on German direct investment in the Czech Republic and is conceived as a data collection by a large number of facetoface interviews. The survey covers both countries entirely and involves the German parent companies and their Czech subsidiaries as the two treatment groups, complemented by Czech firms in purely Czech ownership and German companies with no FDI at all. For the four groups specific questionnaires were developed which are closely interlinked and allow comparative analyses, but do not neglect differences of neither the characteristics of the two survey groups nor the national (labour market) particularities. The method report presents the questions which arose through a cross-border company survey and the solutions found. The process of the implementation is described, focussing on the creation of the database as well as on the questionnaire development.