Absorptive capacity and benefits from FDI: Evidence from Chinese manufactured exports

China's global export rank rose from the 32nd in 1978 to the 1st in 2009, and in the same period China had been a top recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world. Does large FDI inflow automatically lead to the export boom? Or is it a must for China to have certain absorptive capacity (AC) given FDI? This work investigates how manufacturing exports (MX) are affected by the AC-FDI interaction. MX performance is assessed by three indicators: export capacity, export intensity, and export quality. AC is defined as a host-country's ability to capture potential benefits from FDI, and such ability is proxied by government FDI policy, human capital, R&D, and infrastructure. Estimates are conducted with the data on 21 manufacturing sectors for 31 regions over 8 years (2005-2012). We find that (a) AC is necessary condition for China to benefit from FDI in MX, and contributions of FDI alone to MX are limited; (b) China's strong AC largely comes from well-designed FDI policy and high quality infrastructure, both of which complement with FDI in strengthening export capacity, intensity and quality; and (c) human capital and R&D seems to be more helpful for China to capture spillovers from FDI to export quality.