The new era of geopolitics and geoeconomy significantly alters the economic landscape and the operating environment. It is already clear that industrial policies and barriers to international trade increasingly influence the location of investment decisions. These trends challenge the...

This study investigates the relationship between innovations and firm growth, based on the data of Finnish firms operating in the software industry. We find that in terms of turnover and employment, firms with only technological innovations do not grow more rapidly than other firms. However,...

Available statistics tell us little about the economic consequences of increasing global dispersion of production processes. In order to shed light on the issue, we perform grass roots detective work to uncover the geography of value added in the case of a Nokia N95 smartphone circa 2007. The...

In this paper, we examine firm innovation and its link to firm growth. Instead of using the conventional conceptualization and operationalization of innovation in terms of the R&D budget, we use a more elaborate 12-dimensional conceptualization, which takes into account also the...

In order to shed light on the consequences of the ongoing financial crisis, ETLA conducted two surveys at the end of October 2008. The firm survey targeted firms employing at least 10 persons in Finland (2,017 observations with a response rate of 33%) and the consumer survey targeted...

This study empirically explores whether R&D offshoring affects the domestic R&D employment at the firm level. Overall, the Finnish survey data suggest that the impact of R&D internationalization on domestic R&D employment depends on the mode of internationalization (in-house offshoring vs....

In the globalized world economy the crucial issue is locational competition - where internationally competitive firms invest and locate their high value-added production. The policy challenge is to enhance firms' capabilities to create firm-specific competitive advantages linked to certain...

This report summarizes 39 detailed ETLA case studies of global value chains (GVCs). The findings suggest that the value added in global value chains is less tied to their tangible aspects than what conventional wisdom suggests. Intangible aspects of GVCs tend to be more important, but their poor...

We study how Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) measures gross fixed capital formation in foreign-owned companies. Our data include firm-level information on FDI inflows and real investment (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) by foreign-owned companies located in Finland. Our results suggest that the...

There are almost 200,000 enterprises operating in the Finnish service sector, combined. However, not all of the service industries are the same. Some services have become independent of geographical locations, meaning that they can be exported, much like physical products. Other services still...