TECHNOLOGY ORIGINS OF FOREIGN-OWNED FIRMS IN OHIO

Do foreign-owned firms transfer non-US technologies to their US subsid iaries or do they rely primarily on US technologies? The effects of fo reign-owned firms in the United States on US technological capability have been controversial. We investigate the country origins of the pre sent and initial technologies of foreign-owned firms in Ohio and expla in statistically, using survey data, why the country origins of these firms' technologies might have differed Consistent with direct foreign investment (DFI) theory, for most firms, both the present and initial technologies have been sourced from their parent-firm countries. Alth ough the statistical explanations of the differences in the country or igins of initial and present technologies differ according to CHAID (C hi-squared Automatic Interaction Detector) and logistic regression ana lyses, they are fully consistent with each other. Relative importance of exporting is associated with US technologies, as we would expect fr om comparative advantage theory, whereas relative importance of import ing is associated with foreign technologies, which can be attributed t o the foreign input requirements of such technologies. Moreover, green field investments are more likely than brownfield investments to have a foreign country as the origin of the initial technology. This result , too, is consistent with direct foreign investment (DFI) theory. Thes e results are statistically independent of specific home countries and firm size. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.