Foreign Direct Investment Spillovers: Evidence from the British Retail Sector

This paper discusses the impact of foreign-ownership presence on the productivity performance of British-owned domestic retailers. In particular, we analyse the existence of productivity spillovers, in the form of knowledge transfer, by using establishment-level data from the Annual Respondents Database over the period 1997-2003. The results confirm the presence of such spillovers and highlight their positive and significant impact on the productivity of domestic firms, although these spillovers are mostly confined to the region in which foreign subsidiaries locate. There is also evidence that the productivity benefit from regional foreign direct investment spillovers increases with the absorptive capacity of domestic retailers.