Trade Liberalization, Foreign Direct Investment, and Productivity of Russian Firms

The paper studies the effect of liberalization of imports and foreign direct investment on Russian firms. Using the firm-level data from 1993-2000, the paper finds that competition with imports and with FDI exerts positive effect on domestic firms. Prior to the 1998 crisis, this effect is weaker in the case of firms located in complex industries. Increased availability of imported inputs or inputs produced by foreignowned firms helped to improve productivity of domestic firms in the mid-1990s, although the devaluation of the ruble in 1998 temporarily made firms relying on foreign-produced inputs less competitive. Finally, entry of foreign-owned firms in some cases leads to improvements in TFP of the firms that produce inputs for foreignowned firms. This effect also weakened after 1998, possibly because of the negative effect of devaluation on foreign-owned firms.