Derrames de IED y calidad de las exportaciones de las empresas uruguayas

This research assesses whether the presence of foreign firms has had any impact on the export quality of local firms in Uruguay (export spillovers from FDI). Using firm, product and export destination data, merged with firm-level economic activity data for the 2007-2017 period for Uruguay, no positive relationship is found between FDI spillovers and export quality, either when using unit values or the approach of Khandelwal et al. (2013) as proxy. Using unit value as a proxy for quality, a negative relationship is found between quality and Horizontal and Upstream Spillovers. No significant relationship is found when using quality estimated according to Khandelwal et al. (2013). However, using the approach of Khandelwal et al. (2013), positive impacts from FDI Horizontal Spillovers on the quality of exports of local firms are identified in the 2013-2017 sub-period, as well as positive impacts from Downstream in the full sample of local and foreign companies in the 2007-2017 period.