Faculty of Economics

This study examines how the origin of foreign investors affects the degree of horizontal and vertical technological spillovers, using firm-level panel data from Vietnam in 2002–2011. The results show a positive association between the presence of Asian firms in downstream sectors and the productivity of Vietnamese firms in supply industries, but no significant relationship in the case of European and North American affiliates. Within Asia, we find that foreign direct investment from China and Taiwan generates positive vertical spillovers to local suppliers. We hypothesize that distance, preferential trade agreements, and institutional or technological differences that affect the degree of local sourcing significantly impact vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. The horizontal spillover effects are in general negative and statistically significant. Various robustness checks are performed.

Environmental protection is an inevitable issue that developing countries all have to deal with during the process of inviting foreign direct investment (FDI). However, high correlation between FDI and pollution doesn’t necessarily indicate that foreign firms are to blame. In this paper, we apply firm-level panel data in Vietnam and unique information on waste discharge to show that foreign firms are actually more active to acquire ISO14001, a voluntary environmental standard. And the adoption will in turn improve firms’ performance in waste control. It also increases firms’ welfare as well as their productivity level. A theoretical dynamic game model lends support to our empirical findings. This paper provides strong evidence that firms’ efforts towards corporate social responsibility will eventually benefit themselves as well.

Using both firm-level and city-level data from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics and unique information on investment promotion agencies (IPA) in China, the present paper evaluates whether IPA affect foreign direct investment (FDI) from the perspective of both intensive and extensive margins; that is, re-investment by incumbent foreign-owned firms and total new FDI inflows into the city, respectively. After controlling for potential determinants of FDI and correcting for biases due to endogeneity, we find that, in general, IPA do not necessarily increase FDI in either case. However, IPA are found to promote re-investment by large foreign-owned firms. The results imply difficulty in the dissemination of information about the business environment to foreign investors.

The determinants of ISO14001 adoption have been considered to fall into two categories: the external pressure from environment-oriented stakeholders or customers; the internal need due to expected future benefits. In this paper we take a step further to elaborate on the mechanism of firms' adoption by investigating the interrelationship among firms' productivity, capital intensity and the decision-making of the adoption. Applying a general equilibrium model, we show that under optimal condition, highly productive firms can benefit more from the adoption. In the meantime technology advancement potentially drives up the capital intensity of the firms, and this factor will positively affect firms' incentive of adoption as well. The empirical practice using the firm-level data in Vietnam verifies our predictions with robustness. In addition, we find that the phenomenon outlined above becomes even more obvious in the manufacturing sectors.

Developing countries are eager to host foreign direct investment (FDI) to receive positive technology spillovers to their local firms. However, which type of foreign firms are desirable for the host country to best achieve spillovers? At first sight, foreign firms with higher productivity may benefit local firms more by transferring their advanced knowledge. However, their technological and managerial knowledge may be too advanced for local firms to learn. We address this question using firm-level panel data from Vietnam to investigate whether foreign Asian investors in downstream sectors with different productivity affects the productivity of local Vietnamese firms in upstream sectors differently. Using endogenous structural breaks, we divide Asian investors into low, middle, and high productivity groups. The results suggest that the middle group has the strongest significant positive impact on the productivity of local suppliers. Robustness checks also verify our findings.

Closed, isolated, sealed off -- these are all terms that have been used to describe Japan from the time the Portuguese were expelled in 1639 until commercial treaties permitting free trade were concluded in 1856. During this time, the only Westerners permitted into Japan were the dozen or so Dutch East India Company servants, who were crowded onto tiny Deshima Island in the Bay of Nagasaki after 1641. These would not seem to be ideal conditions for cultural influence. But every year Company vessels transported hundreds of objects into Japan that reflected European taste and technological accomplishment.
This study examines how European material culture moved through the world of Early Modern Japan from port to end-user. Company trade, private trade, smuggling and gift-giving practices are elucidated through the extensive use of the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and its successors, personal archives and Japanese sources. Focused case studies on clocks and clockwork, glass and firearms show the ongoing influence of Europe on Japan, demolishing forever the idea that Japan was culturally isolated.

This richly illustrated volume offers the reader unique insight into the materiality of Asian cultures and the ways in which objects and practices can simultaneously embody and exhibit aesthetic and functional characteristics, as well as everyday and spiritual aspirations. Though each chapter is representative, rather than exhaustive, in its portrayal of Asian material culture, together they clearly demonstrate that objects are entities that resonate with discourses of human relationships, personal and group identity formations, ethics, values, trade, and, above all, distinctive futures.

In relating the story of his life on the island of Deshima and in the port of Yokohama during the late 1850s, Dutch merchant C. T. Assendelft de Coningh provides both an unprecedented eyewitness account of daily life in the Japanese treaty ports and a unique perspective on the economic, military, and political forces the Western imperial powers brought to bear on newly opened Japan. 

A general Introduction provides essential historical and cultural background as well as a brief biography of De Coningh; substantial footnotes explain those terms, names, and cultural references that may be unfamiliar to modern readers.  Thirteen illustrations are included, as are a chronology of events, a bibliography, and an index.

When is a statue not a statue? When it is made of ivory. Then it is called an okimono, a term that suggests it is a curio but not art. The international interest in Japanese craft production after the opening of the ports in 1859 led to an explosion of ivory carving, everything from netsuke to entire tusks. Arguing that purchase by tourists does not inherently define the quality of an object, this book examines the efforts of the retailers and artisans to elevate the standard of the craft. Ivory carvers were not just bystanders to the changing demands of the art world, they were leaders in shaping the development of sculpture in Meiji Japan.

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