Are Foreign-Owned Firms Different? Comparison of Employment Volatility and Elasticity of Labour Demand

56 Pages Posted: 5 Aug 2014

See all articles by Jaanika Meriküll

Jaanika Meriküll

Bank of Estonia; University of Tartu

Tairi Room

Bank of Estonia

Date Written: July 9, 2014

Abstract

This paper analyses differences in employment volatility in foreign-owned and domestic companies using firm-level data from 24 European countries. The presence of foreign-owned companies may lead to higher employment volatility because subsidiaries of multinational companies react more sensitively to changes in labour demand in host countries or because they are more exposed to external shocks. We assess the conditional employment volatility of firms with foreign and domestic owners using propensity score matching and find that it is higher in foreign-owned firms in about half of the countries that our study covers. In addition, we explore how and why labour demand elasticity differs between these two groups of companies. Our estimations indicate that labour demand can be either more or less elastic in subsidiaries of foreign-owned multinationals than in domestic enterprises, depending on the institutional environments of their home and host countries.

Keywords: foreign direct investment, employment volatility, labour demand, labour market institutions, European Union

JEL Classification: F23, J23, J51

Suggested Citation

Meriküll, Jaanika and Room, Tairi, Are Foreign-Owned Firms Different? Comparison of Employment Volatility and Elasticity of Labour Demand (July 9, 2014). ECB Working Paper No. 1704, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2464134 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2464134

Jaanika Meriküll (Contact Author)

Bank of Estonia ( email )

Estonia Building 13
15095 Tallinn
Estonia

University of Tartu ( email )

Ülikooli 18
Tartu 50090
Estonia

Tairi Room

Bank of Estonia ( email )

Estonia Building 13
15095 Tallinn
Estonia

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