Individual Preferences Toward Inward Foreign Direct Investment: A Conjoint Survey Experiment

         
Author Name TANAKA Ayumu (Research Associate, RIETI) / ITO Banri (Research Associate, RIETI) / JINJI Naoto (Faculty Fellow, RIETI)
Creation Date/NO. February 2022 22-E-005
Research Project Studies on Foreign Direct Investment and Multinationals: Impediments, Policy Shocks, and Economic Impacts
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Abstract

In this study, we conduct a conjoint survey experiment in Japan to analyze the determinants of preferences toward the acquisitions by foreign firms. Conjoint survey experiments allow us to simultaneously estimate the effects of various attributes of foreign acquisitions, enabling us to analyze the complex causal relationships between various attributes of an acquisition project and people's antipathy toward it. The results of the experiment demonstrate that the nationality of the foreign firm, reciprocity, and the economic conditions of the location of the firm being acquired are important factors. Specifically, our respondents' approval rates for acquisitions by US firms are higher and those for acquisitions by Chinese, Korean, and Russian firms are lower compared to those for the acquisitions by the baseline "foreign firms." Moreover, their approval rates are higher for acquisitions by firms from countries that have been receptive to Japanese investment and for the foreign takeover of firms in areas with a high unemployment rate.