IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/portec/v13y2014i1p25-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relocation and investment in R&D by firms

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Bárcena-Ruiz
  • María Garzón

Abstract

The literature on foreign direct investment has analyzed corporate location decisions when firms invest in R&D to reduce production costs. Such firms may set up new plants in other developed countries while maintaining their domestic plants. In contrast, we here consider firms that close down their domestic operations and relocate to countries where wage costs are lower. Thus, we assume that firms may reduce their production costs by investing in R&D and likewise by moving their plants abroad. We show that these two mechanisms are complementary. When a firm relocates it invests more in R&D than when it does not change its location and, therefore, its production cost is lower in the first case. As a result, investment in R&D encourages firms to relocate. Copyright ISEG 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Bárcena-Ruiz & María Garzón, 2014. "Relocation and investment in R&D by firms," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 13(1), pages 25-38, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:portec:v:13:y:2014:i:1:p:25-38
    DOI: 10.1007/s10258-014-0096-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10258-014-0096-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10258-014-0096-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. d'Aspremont, Claude & Jacquemin, Alexis, 1988. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in Duopoly with Spillovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1133-1137, December.
    2. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Frode Meland & Lars S¯rgard, 2003. "Unionised Oligopoly, Trade Liberalisation and Location Choice," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 782-800, October.
    3. Kjetil Bjorvatn & Carsten Eckel, 2006. "Technology Sourcing and Strategic Foreign Direct Investment," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(4), pages 600-614, September.
    4. Georges Siotis, 1999. "Foreign Direct Investment Strategies and Firms' Capabilities," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 251-270, June.
    5. Blomström, Magnus & Kokko, Ari, 2003. "The Economics of Foreign Direct Investment Incentives," EIJS Working Paper Series 168, Stockholm School of Economics, The European Institute of Japanese Studies.
    6. René Belderbos & Elissavet Lykogianni & Reinhilde Veugelers, 2008. "Strategic R&D Location by Multinational Firms: Spillovers, Technology Sourcing, and Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 759-779, September.
    7. Tauman, Y & Weiss, Y, 1987. "Labor Unions and the Adoption of New Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 477-501, October.
    8. Norback, Pehr-Johan, 2001. "Multinational firms, technology and location," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 449-469, August.
    9. Petit, Maria-Luisa & Sanna-Randaccio, Francesca, 2000. "Endogenous R&D and foreign direct investment in international oligopolies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 339-367, February.
    10. Leahy, Dermot & Montagna, Catia, 2000. "Unionisation and Foreign Direct Investment: Challenging Conventional Wisdom?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 80-92, March.
    11. Leahy, Dermot & Pavelin, Stephen, 2008. "Playing away to win at home," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 60(5), pages 455-468.
    12. J.Peter Neary, 2002. "Foreign Competition and Wage Inequality," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 680-693, November.
    13. Fumagalli, Chiara, 2003. "On the welfare effects of competition for foreign direct investments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 963-983, December.
    14. Maria Petit & Francesca Sanna-Randaccio, 1998. "Technological innovation and multinational expansion: A two-way link?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 1-26, February.
    15. Kamien, Morton I & Muller, Eitan & Zang, Israel, 1992. "Research Joint Ventures and R&D Cartels," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1293-1306, December.
    16. Hans Gersbach & Armin Schmutzler, 2011. "Foreign direct investment and R&D-offshoring," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 134-157, January.
    17. Calabuig, Vicente & Gonzalez-Maestre, Miguel, 2002. "Union structure and incentives for innovation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 177-192, March.
    18. repec:bla:reviec:v:10:y:2002:i:2:p:278-98 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Ulph, Alistair & Ulph, David, 1998. "Labour markets, bargaining and innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 931-939, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bárcena Ruiz, Juan Carlos & Garzón San Felipe, María Begoña, 2011. "Relocation and Investment in R&D by Firms," IKERLANAK 2011-52, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    2. Bárcena Ruiz, Juan Carlos & Campo Corredera, María Luz, 2003. "Timing of Wage Setting when Firms Invest in R&D," IKERLANAK 1134-8984, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    3. Constantine Manasakis & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2009. "Union structure and firms' incentives for cooperative R&D investments," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 665-693, May.
    4. Qu, Zhe & Huang, Can & Zhang, Mingqian & Zhao, Yanyun, 2013. "R&D offshoring, technology learning and R&D efforts of host country firms in emerging economies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 502-516.
    5. Bertrand, Olivier & Zuniga, Pluvia, 2006. "R&D and M&A: Are cross-border M&A different? An investigation on OECD countries," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 401-423, March.
    6. René Belderbos, 2006. "R&D Activities in East Asia by Japanese, European, and US Multinationals," Microeconomics Working Papers 21887, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    7. René Belderbos & Elissavet Lykogianni & Reinhilde Veugelers, 2008. "Strategic R&D Location in European Manufacturing Industries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 144(2), pages 183-206, July.
    8. Brcena-Ruiz, Juan Carlos & Garzn, Mara Begoa, 2009. "Relocation and public ownership of firms," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 71-85, March.
    9. Quan Dong & Juan Carlos Bárcena-Ruiz & María Begoña Garzón, 2015. "Restrictions on Foreign Investments and the Relocation of Firms," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 250-265, December.
    10. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume, 2012. "Employment Protection Versus Flexicurity: On Technology Adoption in Unionised Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 177-199, March.
    11. Bruno Decreuse & Paul Maarek, 2015. "FDI and the Labor Share in Developing Countries : A Theory and Some Evidence," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 119-120, pages 289-319.
    12. Dusanee Kesavayuth & Sang-Ho Lee & Vasileios Zikos, 2018. "Merger and Innovation Incentives in a Differentiated Industry," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 207-221, May.
    13. Ana Mauleon & Jose J. Sempere‐Monerris & Vincent Vannetelbosch, 2008. "Networks of knowledge among unionized firms," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 971-997, August.
    14. Hans Gersbach & Armin Schmutzler, 2011. "Foreign direct investment and R&D-offshoring," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 134-157, January.
    15. Ben Ferrett & Vasileios Zikos, 2013. "Wage-Setting Institutions and R&D Collaboration Networks," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 61-78, June.
    16. Naoto Jinji & Xingyuan Zhang & Shoji Haruna, 2022. "Deep Integration, Global Firms, and Technology Spillovers," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-981-16-5210-3, February.
    17. Mukherjee, Arijit & Pennings, Enrico, 2011. "Unionization structure, licensing and innovation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 232-241, March.
    18. Bertrand, Olivier, 2009. "Effects of foreign acquisitions on R&D activity: Evidence from firm-level data for France," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1021-1031, July.
    19. Sophocles N. Brissimis & Theodora S. Kosma, 2005. "Market Power, Innovative Activity and Exchange Rate Pass-Through," Working Papers 22, Bank of Greece.
    20. Petit, Maria-Luisa & Sanna-Randaccio, Francesca, 2000. "Endogenous R&D and foreign direct investment in international oligopolies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 339-367, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Relocation; R&D; Social welfare; Imperfect competition; D6; F16; J51; L13;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:portec:v:13:y:2014:i:1:p:25-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.