No 2014/24 Ownership Change, Multinationals, and Growth of New Technology-Based Firms

Abstract

New technology-based firms (NTBFs) are usually restricted by limited ownership and management structures. This paper explores whether acquisition, particularly that by multinational enterprises (MNEs), promotes the growth of NTBFs. Based on micro-level longitudinal data, we construct a large sample of Swedish NTBFs entering from 1997 to 2002 and follow them until 2009. This paper uses fixed effects models combined with inverse-probability-of-treatment weights (IPTW) to account for endogeneity of acquisition arising from both time-invariant and time-variant heterogeneity across firms. The findings show that acquisition by Swedish MNEs significantly improves the growth of NTBFs, but only when it comes to the growth in employees. In contrast, acquisition by both foreign MNEs and Swedish domestic enterprises are not found to have any significant effects on the growth in either employees or sales of NTBFs.