MULTINATIONAL LOCATION DECISIONS AND THE ACCESS TO IMPORTED INPUTS

Although the influence of agglomeration economies on foreign direct investment location decisions is widely recognized in the literature, the nature of positive externalities is less well understood. This paper examines a particular source, access to specialized imported inputs, by applying a conditional logit model to the location decisions of Taiwanese multinationals in China. Our evidence, based on the 2,918 foreign direct investment projects approved between 1994 to 2006 in conjunction with Chinese customs data, reveals a positive effect of access to imported intermediate inputs and capital goods on the average investment, with effects that vary by industry group, time period and investment stage.