Labour demand adjustment: Does foreign ownership matter?

This paper examines whether multinational companies differ in their employment adjustment from domestic firms, on the basis of a panel of Belgian firms for the period 1997-2007. We focus on incumbent firms as, in general, they account for the largest fraction of net employment creation, especially among multinational firms (MNFs). We obtain structural estimates of adjustment cost parameters for blue-collar workers and white-collar workers, domestic firms, and MNFs. We find evidence of convex, asymmetric (in the sense that it is more expensive to downsize than to upsize) and cross adjustment co... Mehr ...