Ownership, R&D and export intensities of automotive parts firms in East Asia

Abstract

This study examines ownership differences in R&D and export intensities in a sample of auto-parts firms from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. The influence of national institutions and meso-organizations is evident from the higher firm-level R&D intensity in countries with stronger high-tech infrastructure than those with weaker infrastructures regardless of ownership differences. The results show that foreign firms rely much more on home plants to undertake R&D. The pooled regressions show higher R&D intensities in local rather than in foreign firms, thus demonstrating the importance of national policy regimes. Export-orientation was highly correlated with R&D intensities in the local sample, which shows the influence both ways of firm-level efforts to raise technological intensity levels to compete in export markets, as well as the impact of the latter on the former. The results also show that foreign firms are much more export-oriented than local firms.

Keywords:

• automotive parts
• East Asia
• exports
• ownership
• R&D

Notes

1. See also Buckley (2009).

2. Fukasaku (1992) used this framework to examine the evolution of technology in the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard.

3. Using W as an independent variable clearly biases the estimates.