Determinantes Cross-Country das Fusões e Aquisições Internacionais e dos Investimentos Greenfields

Abstract

In the last years there were few subjects in International Management that have received so much level of attention as the FDI entry mode choice, in particular, the decision between acquiring an already existing foreign firm or establishing a new firm in a foreign country. However, the results, far from being consensual, have been supplied by firm-level studies. An interesting question, not yet explored, is the empirical evidence related to the existence of macroeconomic mode-specific determinants. Another issue which requires investigation is related to the potential effects that cross border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and greenfield investments cause on host countries economic growth. These are the two central questions of the present study. In what concerns the first question, we extended the work by Globerman and Shapiro (2005) in order to investigate, not only the macroeconomic specific determinants of cross border M&A, but also those of greenfield investments. We adopted a panel data set of 53 countries, over the period 1996-2006. We have found evidence that allow us to conclude that, despite the existence of a group of mode-encompassing variables (such as economy s size, openness, governance and human development index) there are others that seem to be mode-specific variables. Among these, the degree of investor protection and cultural context variables seem to play an important role in the explanation of cross border M&A and greenfield investments, respectively. In addition, we did not found significant differences between developed and developing countries, with respect to entry mode-specific determinants. In the second question a new approach was introduced to study the relationship between FDI and economic growth, while distinguishing the effects of cross border M&A and the ones of greenfield investments. The evidence suggests that there is bidirectional causality between FDI / M&A and economic growth. We have also concluded that economic growth causes greenfields, but the reverse is not true. Moreover, based on the estimation of a structural growth model, the results indicate a positive relationship between greenfield investments and economic growth, in both groups of countries. Instead, cross border M&A seem to exert a negative effect on the economic growth of developing countries and insignificant on developed countries.