The innovation spillovers from outward and inward foreign direct investment: a firm-level spatial analysis

This paper estimates and compares the spatial spillovers from both inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) to the innovation activities of indigenous firms, in particular, the innovation input and output. This analytical study is based on a firm-level spatial dynamic regression, which is, for the first time, conducted on a large-scale firm-level panel in the FDI literature. Using data from Shandong province in China over the period 2002–07, we find that both inward FDI (IFDI) and outward FDI (OFDI) significantly stimulate innovation activities of domestic firms. More importantly, the spillover effect from OFDI is much larger than that from IFDI. The results tend to support the going-out strategy of the Chinese government.