Foreign Capital and Industrialization in Malaysia

Abstract

This book discusses historically the emergence and contribution of foreign capital in Malaysia's industrial development. After an extensive review of the extant literature on the development implications of foreign direct investment, the book uses different methodologies to evaluate the contribution of foreign capital to industrialization in the country. One chapter discusses using historical work the significance of foreign capital in the emergence of industrialization in colonial Malaya. The book that examines using Kaldor's increasing returns methodology to examine in aggregate terms the significance of manufacturing FDI in the national economy, and in the individual manufacturing industries using trade ratios, productivity and linkage coefficients. The final two analytical chapters uses a novel snowballing data collection methodology to examine pecuniary and technological spillovers from foreign firms onto local firms.

Keywords: Foreign capital, industrialization, linkages, Malaysia