Multinational Corporations as Catalyst for Industrial Development: The Case of Poland

In a recent model Markusen and Venables (1999) describe the conditions under which foreign direct investments (FDI) can act as a catalyst for local industrial development. We apply this framework to the case of Poland, allowing for the entry of multinationals in both intermediates and consumption goods industry. We check these assumptions against empirical evidence, exploring agglomeration patterns of multinational and domestic firms at the regional level, and constructing an econometric model able to measure the interactions between the two classes of firms. We find evidence going in the direction of both direct spill-overs and backward and forward linkages between domestic and multinational firms.