The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the choice between establishing a wholly-owned subsidiary (WOS) or entering into a joint venture (JV) as made by Catalan manufacturing firms investing abroad. The validity of certain key transaction-cost hypotheses in this case is tested using binomial logistic regression. Results indicate that a Catalan manufacturing firm is more likely to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary if the firm is sufficiently large, has had substantial experience in the host country geographical region, but is young and possesses little general experience in the international sphere. On the other hand, a Catalan firm is more likely to invest via a WOS if the firm possesses intangible or tacit assets and operates within a technologically advanced sector. Finally, a joint venture is preferred by a Catalan firm if the potential host country is perceived to imply a high degree of instability and risk or has a high rate of growth.

In recent years, and for the first time in Spanish economic history, outward direct investment flows outweigh inward flows. Catalan manufacturing not only mirrors this pattern, but also represents a high proportion of all Spanish manufacturing outward direct investment. In this paper, we analyse the factors that determine outward direct investment by Catalan manufacturing firms. We apply Dunning’s eclectic paradigm, which distinguishes between ownership, internalisation and location advantages. In applied studies, these advantages have usually been approximated by variables relating to the investing firm and variables about host countries. Our research endeavours to identify which of these variables determine the probability of a manufacturing Catalan firm to own production subsidiaries overseas.

This paper presents new data, in the form of four indices, on liberalization policies and the independence of regulators for a cross section of countries. These indices are combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze both the determinants and the impact of telecommunications policies. We find that liberalization policies are negatively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist tradition, but not with the partisan ideology of reforming countries per se. We also find that countries where the institutional endowment constrains less the behaviour of the executive bodies, and countries with a stronger incumbent, are more prone to create truly independent regulatory agencies. There is weak evidence that the creation of independent regulatory agencies has a positive effect on network penetration when we take into account the endogeneity of regulatory independence.