Foreign Direct Investment, Foreign Certification and Firm Performance in Morocco: Evidence from the World Bank Enterprise Survey

In an increasingly complex international environment, the expansion of global capital flows, particularly foreign direct investment (FDI),has become an important catalyst in developing countries, in part due to a large and significant integration into global value chains (GVCs). Theoretically, the presence of multinationals in the host country is supposed to increase productivity, employment, wages, know-how, and technology of domestic firms. However, so far, the results in the empirical literature have been unclear, mainly due to the limited reliable and detailed enterprise-level data. As a result, in this paper we attempt to examine whether there is a significant difference between multinationals (MNE) and domestic firms in Morocco on a set of economic performance outcomes. To do so, we used firm-level data obtained from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for the year 2019, using a quasi experimental technique called propensity score matching (PSM). The results reveal that the difference between foreign-owned and domestic matched firms leads to a decrease in labor productivity, higher employment and non significant impact on wages. In addition, our findings indicate that the use of foreign certification shows a positive impact on the demand of skilled labor than for foreign ownership indicator.