Technology spillovers in electronic and mechanic industries : The role of ownership structure and wage & training expenses in Vietnam
Abstract
Many prior studies have explored most impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host country businesses regarding to technology spillovers, international trade, and economic growth. However, a little studies have investigated technology transfer in some specific industries of the host country. The paper aims to tackle this issue by exploiting the firm-level panel data obtained from General Statistics Office of Vietnam to investigate the magnitude of technology spillovers in electronic and mechanic industries during nine years period from 2007 to 2015. The findings illustrated that backward spillover was positive and significant effect, while there was no evidence for horizontal linkage. The pattern of technology transfer was different from previous studies, in which firms with lower cost of wage and training activities had received larger beneficial spillover compared to higher ones in terms of backward linkages. Vertical spillovers for fully foreign-owned firms were the most positive and significant impact, while no vertical connection was found for joint stock firms. Furthermore, forward spillover only occurred in state-owned enterprises. Finally, private firms received no beneficial technology transfer from the presence of FDI. This finding implied that a wide technology gap would hinder benefits from FDI spillover.
Keywords: technology spillover, FDI, ownership structures, wage and training expenses.