Meta-Analysis of Intra-Industry FDI Spillovers: Updated Evidence

Using 67 published and unpublished studies, we conduct a meta-analysis of the literature on intra-industry productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment. The combined significance test of individual t-statistics is inconclusive, but it is apparent that papers published in leading journals tend to report insignificant results. Meta-regression analysis confirms that cross-sectional and industry-level studies are likely to find relatively strong spillover effects and that the choice of the proxy for foreign presence is important. The pattern, however, seems to weaken over time. Evidence for publication selection bias was detected employing the funnel asymmetry test, and the spillover effect corrected for publication bias is not significantly different from zero.