"'Development Impacts' of Transnational Corporations"

organized by the Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Development

The group invites papers in the following areas:

1) TNCs and industrial policy:
While the earlier explanations of the East Asian miracle tend towards a 'free-market story', most economists agree now that the rapid development of the Asian countries has been encouraged by the utilization of a vast range of industrial policy measures. China's development is not only due to good fundamentals, the export orientation, the large market size but also to a government determined to acquire domestic capabilities and to build a modern industry. Rapid-growing developing countries have been especially successful by preventing the TNCs from constituting "enclaves". Papers will explore both the successful and failed experiences of certain countries. The question of industrial policy is of particular interest for countries that have massively attracted export-oriented TNCs thanks to liberal FDI-regimes, and lack the instruments to stimulate the interaction between TNCs and indigenous firms. In this panel, papers will also explore the new policies adopted by some South-American countries aiming to increase the rent they get from TNCs in the resource-based sectors.

2) TNCs and industrial linkages:
Traditionally, industrial linkages have been seen as a way for developing countries and transition countries to counter the forces of globalisation and compensate for some of the resource and structural disadvantages that local industries have vis-à-vis global markets. Recently, growing attention has been devoted to the interplay between foreign direct investment (FDI) by TNCs and industrial clustering in developing countries and transition countries. On the one hand, FDI is attracted by the existence of linkages and may directly and through spill-overs contribute to the building and deepening of these linkages. On the other hand, FDI may undermine industrial linkages in developing and transition countries through competition effects and by introducing vertical modes of organization that is at odds with the horizontal and nation-based organization of local industrial linkages. Papers on TNCs and industrial linkages will explore these and other dilemmas associated with FDI and cluster-based economic development strategies.

3) TNCs and Poverty and Inequality:
Few issues in the development process raise as much heat as the relationship between TNCs and poverty and inequality. The linkages between TNCs and both income and non-income poverty and inequality are neither conceptually nor empirically clear. Recent FDI expansion in water, sanitation, electricity and other utilities, interest in health and education delivery and social security have further raised the question of the impact of TNCs on multi-dimensional poverty in particular. Additionally, shifts over the last twenty years towards more FDI in services, more South-South FDI and in general more liberal FDI regimes may all have various impacts on poverty and inequality. Papers will explore these and other related issues.

4) South-South FDI:
FDI from developing countries or from transition countries to other developing or transition countries have developed rapidly in the last decade. Developing and transition economies have emerged as significant outward investors (see the UNCTAD's World investment report, 2006). The emergence of Chinese and Russian TNCs may modify the rules of the game in the world market. These new investments have raised the question of their determinants and their impacts on host economies. Of particular interest are the following questions: Do these TNCs have something special to offer? Do they have the same impacts as TNCs from developed countries or are the benefits for the host country different?

5) TNCs and sustainable development:
TNCs may have an important role to play in favour of the sustainable development pushing for environmentally-friendly patterns of production in developing and transition countries. This argument is based on the increasing participation of TNCs in the global economy and their access to advanced technology. By transferring advanced technology and increasing the productivity of the domestic firms they can contribute to the reduction of resources consumption and the reduction of pollution. But, do the MNCs really contribute to the sustainable development in the developing world?

Please use the Online Submission Tool to submit your abstract. We welcome submissions in English and French.

Conveners:

Michael W. Hansen
Department of Intercultural Communication and Management
Copenhagen Business School
Denmark
E-Mail: mwh.ikl@cbs.dk

Eric Rugraff
Université de Strasbourgh
France
E-Mail: eric.rugraff@urs.u-strasbg.fr

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