Irina Semykina (p)

Marina Van Geenhuizen

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Nicola Cortinovis (p), Riccardo Crescenzi, Frank Van Oort

Riccardo Crescenzi

In the era of international investments and firms’ mobility, the effects of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on the hosting economy figure prominently in the scientific and policy debates. One of the most solid findings in empirical analyses that have taken up this issue (Narula and Dunning 2000, Fu et al. 2011, Javorkic 2015) is the existence and scope of MNE spillovers. These spillovers, conceptually linked to the new knowledge and technologies brought in by international firms, are often found to positively affect industries that are vertically related to MNEs. In this work, we contribute to this literature by looking at whether MNE spillovers materialise across cognitively related industries. Following Hidalgo et al. (2007), co-occurrence in industrial specialisation is used to define cognitive proximity between industries. We then study how employment in local industries is affected by MNE presence in the industry itself and in cognitively proximate ones. Our preliminary results show, along with positive intra-industry effects, the existence of positive MNE externalities across related industries, though only in the case of knowledge-intensive sectors and in more advanced European regions.

Marina van Geenhuizen (p), Pieter Stek

Irina Semykina

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