Transnational Corporations - Current Issue

Transnational Corporations is a longstanding, policy-oriented, refereed research journal on issues related to investment, multinational enterprises and development. It is an official journal of the United Nations, managed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). As such it has global reach, a strong development policy imprint and high potential for impact beyond the scholarly community. There are no fees or article processing charges associated with submitting to or publishing in Transnational Corporations. All articles of the online version of the journal are open access and free to read and download for everyone.

This study investigates the productivity gap between foreign-owned and domestic firms in Viet Nam. Using quantile regression estimation for the period of 2011–2020, the study first examines the impact of firms’ specifics and of provincial governance quality on firms’ total factor productivity at different points of the productivity distribution. The results show that labour productivity, market share and return on assets appear to significantly affect firm productivity regardless of firm groups or quantiles. To understand the productivity gap between foreign and domestic firms, the study uses the quantile decomposition approach to differentiate the factors that contribute to the gap at different quantiles. Our findings reveal that across quantiles most of the productivity gap is explained by firms’ specifics, especially labour productivity. To address the productivity gap between foreign-owned and domestic firms in Viet Nam, policymakers should focus on enhancing domestic firms’ access to technology, firms’ experience and human capital development, as firm-specific factors appear to be major contributors to the productivity differential. In addition, improving provincial governance quality and creating an enabling environment for both foreign-owned and domestic firms can further stimulate productivity growth and foster healthy competition in the manufacturing sector.

This study presents novel estimates of foreign holdings using a consolidated-by- nationality approach for a sample of 14 developed countries over multiple years. This approach provides an alternative for policymakers and researchers to analyse international exposure that complements the existing approach based on residence-based data. Two main advantages of the nationality-based approach are that it looks through corporate structures of multinational enterprises and considers local positions. The resulting novel data show that aggregate international financial integration is larger than residence-based data indicate for the sample. These data are used to analyse (i) profit-shifting activities and (ii) spillovers from United States monetary policy shocks. This study presents evidence suggesting that nationals of relatively high-tax countries may shift assets to low-tax countries in ways not fully captured in residence-based statistics. It also shows that a tightening in United States monetary policy is associated with a decline in foreign asset holdings by non-financial multinational enterprises using the consolidated-by-nationality approach. These findings underscore the relevance of using the consolidated-by-nationality approach to evaluate policy-relevant questions.

Good corporate governance practices are not universal. Unlike practices in institutional settings in developed countries, which have attracted most scholarly attention, corporate governance practices in emerging economies lean towards addressing principal-principal conflicts that stem from concentrated ownership. The study employs a difference-in-differences panel data design with matched samples of Chinese firms cross-listed in mainland China and Hong Kong (China) and of those listed only in Hong Kong (China) based on propensity score matching. It thus adopts a natural experimental setting – the promulgation of China’s Revised Securities Law in March 2020 – to pinpoint whether and how legal revisions of investor protection laws can really benefit investors. The findings show that independent directors in cross-listed firms turn over significantly more than those in firms listed only in Hong Kong (China). Also, it suggests that firms mainly replace departed directors with new directors from similar demographics. Furthermore, the study observes no evidence of significant changes in board independence in the short run. The findings suggest that policymakers should mind unintended consequences beyond the intended outcomes of the legal reforms on corporate governance, particularly the potential disproportionate impacts on smaller firms.

Using recently published country-by-country reporting data released by the United States Internal Revenue Service, we assess United States multinationals’ activity in the single market, aiming to contribute with databased evidence to the ongoing political debate about the potential changes in the European corporate tax system. Our findings show evidence of artificial profit shifting across member States under the current method to allocate profits of multinational enterprises, with the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland appearing to be the countries showing a higher degree of complicity with these activities. Such actions challenge fair international taxation in the European Union, distorting European internal competition and hampering tax revenue collection. Although it may not be (yet) the time for a worldwide unitary taxation approach, the analysis highlights the urgency for the European Union to adopt a formulary apportionment approach, overhauling a century-old set of global tax rules based on the separate entity approach.

In recent years, interest has been growing among policymakers in how to leverage special economic zone (SEZ) policies to support local entrepreneurship. With a few recent exceptions, the academic literature to date has been silent on the matter. This article aims to contribute to addressing this gap. First, it develops a conceptual framework linking SEZ policies and entrepreneurship development. Second, it explores the state of play of entrepreneurship promotion in SEZs in Africa using a survey of African SEZs and two case studies. We find significant appetite among African SEZs to promote local entrepreneurship; however, it is less clear how best to accomplish the task. Many of the policies, facilities and services offered are open to local entrepreneurs rather than being tailored specifically to their needs. The support required in some policy areas also seems to be more straightforward than in others. Adapting the SEZ offering to the needs of local entrepreneurs is one of the key challenges to increasing the effectiveness of the support.