The impact of greenfield FDI and mergers and acquisitions on innovation in Chinese high-tech industries

Using panel data analysis, this paper investigates the impact of international technology spillovers on innovation in Chinese high-tech industries through greenfield foreign direct investment, cross-border mergers and acquisitions and trade. We report that foreign greenfield R&D activities by multinational corporations in a host country significantly affect the innovation performance of domestic firms and there exist both intra-industry and inter-industry spillovers from foreign greenfield R&D. There are only inter-industry M&A spillovers. We find that importing foreign technology and investing in domestic R&D have positive impacts on domestic innovation. The findings have important implications for theory, practitioners and policy-makers.