Foreign Direct Investment and Intra-Industry Trade: The Case of the Automotive Industry in Central Europe

THE TECHNOLOGY OF TRANSITION: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICIES FOR TRANSITION COUNTRIES, pp. 211-240, D. Dyker, ed., Budapest: Central European University Press, 1997

32 Pages Posted: 6 Jul 2010 Last revised: 3 Apr 2012

See all articles by Attila Havas

Attila Havas

Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) - Research Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (HAS)

Date Written: 1997

Abstract

Automotive investment projects across borders have significantly intensified in recent years, as companies have attempted to cut costs via relocation of production, and to get closer to final customers in emerging markets. This chapter analyses the impacts of this global re-structuring process in three Central European countries: Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland.

The Czech and Polish automotive industry has been privatised via ‘brown-field’ investment projects: foreign investors have simply taken over existing companies. In other words, these indigenous, long-established production complexes are being replaced and displaced by Western companies. The process inevitably entails conflicts between traditional and new management methods and work practice. In Hungary, by contrast, car assembly has been re-established via green-field investment projects: there was no ‘old’ industry to be replaced. Hence there was no room for conflicts between traditions and new practices either. It resembles the Japanese practice: all their transplants in the US and UK had been located in the ‘desert’, i.e. in regions with no automotive tradition – precisely in order to avoid the sorts of conflicts that are inevitable on a brown-field scenario.

It is argued that Central European governments need to (i) provide adequate funds for education and training, (ii) promote R&D capabilities and (iii) offer investment incentives geared towards lean production so as to avoid being locked into a low-wage, low-tech, low-value-added ‘development’ path.

Keywords: Automotive industry, globalisation, Foreign Direct Investment, international production networks, transition, Central Europe

JEL Classification: L62, F21, O33, P21, P27, L52, O32, P31, O38

Suggested Citation

Havas, Attila, Foreign Direct Investment and Intra-Industry Trade: The Case of the Automotive Industry in Central Europe (1997). THE TECHNOLOGY OF TRANSITION: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICIES FOR TRANSITION COUNTRIES, pp. 211-240, D. Dyker, ed., Budapest: Central European University Press, 1997, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1634842

Attila Havas (Contact Author)

Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) - Research Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (HAS) ( email )

Toth Kalman u. 4.
Budapest, H-1097
Hungary
+36-30-8164266 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://kti.krtk.hu/en/kutatok/attila-havas/8185/

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
580
Abstract Views
3,090
Rank
86,450
PlumX Metrics