PUBLICATIONS & REPORTS

Contents Introduction

This paper first examines trends in the shares of foreign-owned multinational corporations (MNCs) in the manufacturing industries of ten large, East Asian economies, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, focusing on three downturns surrounding 1998, 2001, and 2009. The paper reveals no consistent trends in MNC shares during the first two downturns and evidence for the most recent downturn is still limited to a few economies. However, it seems clear the trends in MNC shares have varied considerably depending on the downturn, host economy, or indicator used to measure MNC shares. On the other hand, there is a much clearer long-term tendency for MNC shares of firm or plant numbers to be relatively small, reflecting a tendency for MNCs to be relatively large. MNC shares of employment also tend to be smaller than shares of production, earnings, and fixed assets, indicating that MNCs usually have relatively high average labor productivity, earnings per worker, and capital intensity. MNC shares of earnings tend to be smaller than shares of value added while MNC shares of exports tend to be larger than shares of production, indication relatively low labor shares of value added and relatively high export propensities in the region’s manufacturing MNCs.