Technology transfer via foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern Europe

The effects of the global expansion of multinational companies are hotly disputed. Foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies are suggested as one of the main channels of technology transfer to less developed economies. In Central and East Europe their presence proved to be a decisive factor to economic restructuring and development during the transformation from the centrally planned to the market economy. This volume is a unique guide to theory, method of research, and empirical evidence for technology transfer via foreign enterprise subsidiaries. After consolidating the theory and reviewing the latest evidence, the book suggests as possible research methods a state-of-the-art application of econometrics, and an innovative field work-based approach of mezzo-analysis. Today's policy literature is filled with extravagant claims about positive effects from foreign direct investment. However, it emerges that direct technology transfer to foreign subsidiaries is subject to a variety of conditions and the hard evidence on spillover effects to the domestic economy is rather sobering.