Replication folder for 'Foreign Ownership and Skill-biased Technological Change'

We conduct an empirical investigation into the effects of foreign ownership on worker skills using firm-level data from Spain. To control for endogeneity bias due to selection into foreign ownership, we combine a difference-in-differences approach with a propensity score weighting estimator. Our results provide novel evidence that foreign-acquired firms actively raise the skills of their workforce in response to the acquisition by hiring high-skilled workers and providing worker training. To pin down the mechanism, we exploit unique information on whether firms use their foreign parent in exporting to foreign markets. Our results suggest a fundamental role for market access through the foreign parent in explaining skill upgrading in foreign-acquired firms. We reveal substantial productivity gains within foreign-acquired firms and we show that these gains derive from a concurrent effort to raise worker skills and adopt more advanced technology, suggesting a skill bias in technological innovations. We develop a simple theoretical model of foreign ownership featuring technology-skill complementarities in production that can rationalize our findings.

本研究采用西班牙企业层面微观数据，就外资所有权对劳动者技能水平的影响展开实证探究。为控制因企业自选择进入外资所有权结构所引发的内生性偏差，本研究将双重差分法（difference-in-differences）与倾向得分加权估计量（propensity score weighting estimator）相结合。本研究结果提供了全新实证证据：被外资收购的企业会通过招聘高技能劳动者与开展员工培训，主动提升劳动力技能水平以适配收购后的经营需求。为厘清具体作用机制，本研究利用企业是否依托外资母公司开展海外出口这一独有信息进行实证识别。研究结果表明，依托外资母公司获取的海外市场准入机会，是解释被外资收购企业实现技能升级的核心因素。本研究发现被外资收购的企业实现了显著的生产率提升，且该提升源于企业同时推进的两项举措：提升劳动者技能水平与采用更先进的生产技术，这表明技术创新存在技能偏向性。本研究构建了一个包含生产环节技术-技能互补性（technology-skill complementarities）的外资所有权简化理论模型，该模型可合理解释本研究的实证发现。