TY - BOOK ID - 136444040 TI - Do the Biggest Aisles Serve A Brighter Future? : Global Retail Chains and Their Implications for Romania AU - Javorcik, Beata S. AU - Li, Yue PY - 2008 PB - Washington, D.C., The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Access to Markets KW - Agriculture KW - Currencies and Exchange Rates KW - Dairy KW - Debt Markets KW - E-Business KW - Economic Theory and Research KW - Finance and Financial Sector Development KW - Food KW - Food and Beverage Industry KW - Food products KW - Fruit KW - Hypermarkets KW - Industry KW - Information Security and Privacy KW - International Economics & Trade KW - Labor Policies KW - Macroeconomics and Economic Growth KW - Markets and Market Access KW - Microfinance KW - Nuts KW - Private Sector Development KW - Social Protections and Labor KW - Supermarket KW - Supermarkets KW - Surfactants UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:136444040 AB - During the past two decades many economies have opened their retail sector to foreign direct investment, yet little is known about possible implications of such liberalization on the economies of developing host countries. Using firm-level data from Romania, this study examines how the presence of global retail chains affects firms in the supplying industries. Applying a difference-in-differences method, the econometric analyses yield the following conclusions. The expansion of global retail chains leads to a significant increase in the total factor productivity in the supplying industries. Their presence in a region increases the total factor productivity of firms in the supplying industries by 15.2 percent and doubling the number of chains leads to a 10.8 percent increase in total factor productivity. However, the expansion benefits larger firms the most and has a much smaller impact on small enterprises. This conclusion is robust to several extensions and specifications, including the instrumental variable approach. These results suggest that the opening of the retail sector to foreign direct investment may stimulate productivity growth in upstream manufacturing and extend our understanding of foreign direct investment in service sectors. ER -