Multinationals and plant survival

Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate how different ownership structures affect plant survival, and second, to analyze how the presence of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) affects domestic plants’ survival. Using a unique and detailed data set on the Swedish manufacturing sector, I am able to separate plants into those owned by foreign MNEs, domestic MNEs, exporting non-MNEs, and purely domestic firms. In line with previous findings, the result, when conditioned on other factors affecting survival, shows that foreign MNE plants have lower survival rates than non-MNE plants. However, separating the non-MNEs into exporters and non-exporters, the result shows that foreign MNE plants have higher survival rates than non-exporting non-MNEs, while the survival rates of foreign MNE plants and exporting non-MNE plants do not seem to differ. Moreover, the simple non-parametric estimates show that domestic MNE plants are more likely to exit the market than other plants, also when controlling for plant-specific differences. Finally, foreign presence in the market seems to have had a negative impact on the survival rate of plants in non-exporting non-MNEs, but not to have affected plants in exporting non-MNEs or plants in domestic MNEs. [author's abstract]