Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?

In the run up to its accession to the WTO in 2001, China has undergone far-reaching investment liberalisation. As part of this investment liberalisation process, existing restrictions on foreign ownership structure and mandatory export and technology transfer requirements imposed on foreign firms ha...

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Main Authors: Girma, Sourafel, Gong, Yundan, Görg, Holger, Lancheros, Sandra
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2015
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47151/
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author Girma, Sourafel
Gong, Yundan
Görg, Holger
Lancheros, Sandra
author_facet Girma, Sourafel
Gong, Yundan
Görg, Holger
Lancheros, Sandra
author_sort Girma, Sourafel
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description In the run up to its accession to the WTO in 2001, China has undergone far-reaching investment liberalisation. As part of this investment liberalisation process, existing restrictions on foreign ownership structure and mandatory export and technology transfer requirements imposed on foreign firms have been lifted in a number of industries. We exploit these facts to identify the causal effects of foreign acquisitions on export markets entry and technology take-off and to evaluate whether the level of foreign ownership plays a role in stimulating these changes. Using doubly robust propensity score reweighted bivariate probit regressions to control for the selection bias associated with firm level foreign acquisition incidences, we uncover strong but heterogeneous positive effects on export activity for all types of foreign ownership structure. We also find that minority foreign owned acquisition targets experience higher likelihood of R&D, providing evidence that joint ventures between foreign owners and Chinese firms can contribute positively to China’s “science and technology take-off”.
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spelling nottingham-471512020-05-04T17:11:50Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47151/ Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter? Girma, Sourafel Gong, Yundan Görg, Holger Lancheros, Sandra In the run up to its accession to the WTO in 2001, China has undergone far-reaching investment liberalisation. As part of this investment liberalisation process, existing restrictions on foreign ownership structure and mandatory export and technology transfer requirements imposed on foreign firms have been lifted in a number of industries. We exploit these facts to identify the causal effects of foreign acquisitions on export markets entry and technology take-off and to evaluate whether the level of foreign ownership plays a role in stimulating these changes. Using doubly robust propensity score reweighted bivariate probit regressions to control for the selection bias associated with firm level foreign acquisition incidences, we uncover strong but heterogeneous positive effects on export activity for all types of foreign ownership structure. We also find that minority foreign owned acquisition targets experience higher likelihood of R&D, providing evidence that joint ventures between foreign owners and Chinese firms can contribute positively to China’s “science and technology take-off”. Elsevier 2015-08-01 Article PeerReviewed Girma, Sourafel, Gong, Yundan, Görg, Holger and Lancheros, Sandra (2015) Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 116 . pp. 254-269. ISSN 0167-2681 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268115001122?via%3Dihub doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.04.008 doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.04.008
spellingShingle Girma, Sourafel
Gong, Yundan
Görg, Holger
Lancheros, Sandra
Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
title Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
title_full Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
title_fullStr Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
title_full_unstemmed Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
title_short Investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
title_sort investment liberalisation, technology take-off and export market entry: does foreign ownership structure matter?
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47151/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47151/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47151/