IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucm/wpaper/1109.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technological Attraction of FDI flows in Knowledge-Intensive Services: a Regional Innovation System Perspective for Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Celia Torrecillas

    (Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid/Grupo de Investigación en Economía y Política de la Innovación (GRINEI))

  • Bruno B. Fischer

    (Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid/Grupo de Investigación en Economía y Política de la Innovación (GRINEI))

Abstract

An increasing body of literature has been generated regarding the role that services play in innovation systems, in which special attention has been paid recently to Knowledge-Intensive (Business) Services – KIS & KIBS. As not only developed nations but also emerging economies and regions embedded in this countrylevel unit of analysis show an economic structure strongly based in the tertiary sector, it is mandatory for policymaking processes to better evaluate and understand the idiosyncrasies of these innovation-generating services and its relationships with National, Sectoral and Regional Innovation Systems. Thus, this article aims at approaching the dynamics of Foreign Direct Investment (Inward and Outward flows) in KIS in Spain considering the Regional (NUTS 2) level of analysis and taking into account their interactions with the innovative environment of two specific regions (Madrid and Andalusia) by testing a regressive model built upon technological and innovation systems’ variables. The novelty of our approach is to propose a model based on innovation-driven determinants of FDI attraction where: a) the size of innovation systems is approximated by GERD (controlled by GDP) and by a Human Resources variable (Researchers in R&D); and b) technological heterogeneity is measured according to the technological gap between region/country (using a Patent Index proxy). This approach, although novel to our understanding is based on a broad set of references on FDI (Investment Development Path, Asset Augmenting Strategies), internationalization and Innovation Systems (Knowledge Generation, Absorptive Capacity). Preliminary results do not indicate that Innovation Systems affect relevantly the FDI flows for the analyzed regions/countries, suggesting that FDI behaves generally according to a market seeking logic, rather than asset seeking. Improvements for econometric estimations are suggested.

Suggested Citation

  • Celia Torrecillas & Bruno B. Fischer, 2011. "Technological Attraction of FDI flows in Knowledge-Intensive Services: a Regional Innovation System Perspective for Spain," Working Papers del Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales 1109, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucm:wpaper:1109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/13760/2/WP_09-11.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:ucm:wpaper:1109. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Águeda González Abad (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieucmes.html .

    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.