Trade, foreign direct investment and industry performance

This paper investigates the US margins effect of imports and FDI using a panel of 448 manufacturing industries for 1982-1990. In the single equation two-way fixed effects regressions, greenfield FDI has no significant effect on margins; while there is some indication that non-greenfield FDI affect margins and the effect is found to depend on the level of industry concentration. When potential endogeneity among variables are taken into account, both types of FDI are found to increase margins. However, for non-greenfield FDI, the effect appears with a lag of two periods. For the most part, the results indicate that the positive effect on margins holds for industries with 'low' levels of concentration. Beyond some 'critical' level, the competitive effect of FDI predominates. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.