Chasing the Tiger: Is Ireland’s Experience with FDI a Model for Developing Countries?
This chapter adds a case study of Ireland’s experience with FDI, as a complement to the cross-national investigations of preceding chapters. By considering a single country and its policies and institutions through time, this chapter adds context and policy relevance to the larger claims of the book. Ireland’s potential example for developing countries is considered, as well as its limitations. While Ireland has attracted a large amount of FDI since the 1990s, the country has not consistently exhibited innovation-intensive investment patterns. This chapter empirically examines the investment models adopted by firms in Ireland, and connects these strategies to the history of investment promotion and institutional development. This chapter demonstrates that institutions in Ireland did not until recently prioritize multinational embeddedness in the local economy, and that policymakers missed opportunities for innovation-intensive forms of investment. This chapter utilizes firm surveys, and also considers government support for innovation and domestic linkages. The chapter also contains a discussion of the possible implications of the Irish case.