New aspects of multinational firms activities in the context of global financial crisis: experience in Italy

Abstract. In this paper authors examine the effects of ownership status and exporting activity on the like-lihood of survival for firms operating in the Italian manufacturing during the recent economic crisis. In particular, they aim to answer the following two main questions: What is the direct impact of being an exporter or a multinational enterprise (both domestic and foreign) on the likelihood of Italian firm surviv-al? Do globally engaged firms react to the severity of the economic crisis differently from national-non exporter firms? Using an original database for the period 2002-2010 and estimating a conditional Probit model based on a wide range of relevant variables, we find strong evidence that during the recent global crisis exporting firms exhibit lower exiting rates than non exporting ones, while domestic multinationals have higher exit risks than those of domestic firms. Also, affiliates of foreign firms do not behave differently from national firms.