BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

We discuss the patterns of foreign direct investment in R&D within host countries and provide an empirical analysis for Spain by comparing foreign subsidiaries' R&D location patterns with that of domestic plants. We find that foreign subsidiaries' R&D is strongly concentrated in Madrid and Catalonia, the two largest Spanish regional agglomerations. Networked foreign subsidiaries involved in external technology sourcing still centralise to a greater extent their R&D activities in these leading regions. The concentration of foreign direct investment in R&D is significantly greater than that of domestic firms' R&D. The most technologically intensive foreign subsidiaries, however, are not attracted to Madrid, in spite of the alleged advantages of global cities in terms of openness and connectivity; but this is not a specificity of foreign subsidiaries as we observe a similar pattern for domestic firms., Peer reviewed

We analyse a sample of firms that are representative of Spanish manufacturing industry, in order to understand the relationship between foreign status and local cooperation for innovation. We focus on foreign subsidiaries (FS) displaying innovation intensity, newness of technology or the ability to build complex networks with local innovators. Foreign status increases the probability of local cooperation for innovation. However, FS displaying these characteristics are not necessarily more prone to cooperate locally for innovation than similar affiliated domestic firms. The distribution of cooperative FS tends to be even across sectors and this is confirmed for advanced FS. This suggests that FS look for general capabilities in local partnerships, rather than for specific expertise. The strategies of domestic affiliated firms seem to influence the relationship between foreign status and local cooperation for innovation., Ruth Rama gratefully acknowledges that this work was supported by projects ECO2013-41317-R (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness) and P10-SEJ05827 (Junta de Andalucía), Peer reviewed