Greenfield versus merger and acquisition FDI: Same wine, different bottles?

Relying on a large foreign direct investment (FDI) transaction level dataset, unique both in terms of disaggregation and time and country coverage, this paper examines patterns in greenfield (GF) versus merger and acquisition (M&A) investment. Although both are found to seek out large markets with low international barriers, important differences emerge. M&A is more affected by geographic and cultural barriers and exhibits opportunistic behaviours as it is more sensitive to temporary shocks such as a currency crisis. Further, M&A is more affected by destination factors such as financial development and institutional quality. GF, on the other hand, is relatively more driven by factors such as origin comparative advantage and destination taxes. These empirical facts are consistent with the conceptual distinction made between these two modes, i.e., M&A involves transfer of ownership for integration or arbitrage reasons while GF relies on firms’ own capacities, which are linked to origin country attributes. They also suggest that GF and M&A are likely to respond differently to policies intended to attract FDI.