This paper investigates whether government support can act to increase exporting activity. We use a uniquely rich data set on Irish manufacturing plants and employ an empirical strategy that combines a non-parametric matching procedure with a difference-in-differences estimator in order to deal...

This paper investigates whether government support can act to increase exporting activity. We use a uniquely rich data set on Irish manufacturing plants and employ an empirical strategy that combines a non-parametric matching procedure with a difference-in-differences estimator in order to deal...

It has recently been shown that the firm size distribution is initially skewed to the right and then evolves over time to become more lognormal, and argued that this is likely due to firms initially facing financial constraints, see Cabral and Mata(2003). We conjecture that, if this is true,...

It has recently been shown that the firm size distribution is initially skewed to the right and then evolves over time to become more lognormal, and argued that this is likely due to firms initially facing financial constraints, see Cabral and Mata(2003). We conjecture that, if this is true,...

We argue that the measures of backward linkages used in recent papers on spillovers from multinational companies are potentially problematic, as they depend on a number of restrictive assumptions, namely that (i) multinationals use domestically produced inputs in the same proportion as imported...

This paper analyses the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the development of local firms. We focus on two likely effects of FDI: a competition effect which deters entry of domestic firms and positive market externalities which foster the development of local industry. Using a simple...

We examine the importance of a firm's own R&D activity and intra-sectoral spillovers on the decision to export and the export intensity using firm level panel data for Spain for the period 1990 to 1998. Our results are in line with preceding findings on the role played by firm-specific variables...

According to the 'convergence hypothesis' multinational companies will tend to displace national firms and trade as total market size increases and as countries converge in relative size, factor endowments, and production costs. Using a recent model developed by Markusen and Venables (1998) as a...

This paper extends the existing literature on FDI and wage inequality. We do this in two ways. Firstly, we incorporate more precise measures of inward investment into the model, by allowing for differences in the effects between horizontal and vertical FDI. Secondly, after establishing the...

While there have been some references in the literature to the potential role of the general decline in rainfall in sub-Saharan African nations on their poor growth performance relative to other developing countries, this avenue remains empirically unexplored. In this paper we use a new...