Abstract
There is a widespread belief that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) represents a strategic issue within developing countries’ innovation systems. This is a function of expectations that this particular kind of investment can cause positive shocks on host markets’ overall capabilities. Our argument, in consonance with dedicated literature, is that these contributions do not take place without “frictions”, and that there is a significant complementarity between FDI’s effects and the innovation policy framework (particularly those initiatives that influence the existent level of systemic absorptive capacities). Using panel data for developing countries we estimate production functions oriented towards assessing the evolution of National Innovation Systems. Our results suggest that FDI’s positive impacts are contingent upon absorptive capacity in developing countries’ innovation systems. Nonetheless, its contributions are not pervasive, being robustly related only to labor productivity gains.References
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