MNEs and Energy Efficiency in Southeast Asian Manufacturing * (original) (raw)

2013, Asian Economic Papers

After controlling for the influences of plant-level factor usage and technical characteristics, foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) used fuel and total energy more efficiently than local manufacturing plants in about one-third of Malaysia's large energy using industries. MNE-local or MNE-private differentials were insignificant, however, in most industries for electricity in Malaysia; total energy, electricity and three fuels (diesel, natural gas, and coal) in Indonesia; and total energy in Thailand. In short, MNEs and local or private plants generally used purchased energy with similar efficiency, probably because they faced similar host country policies and used similar energy technologies. * This paper summarizes some of the major results from the project "Ownership and Firm-or Plant-level Energy Efªciency in Southeast Asia," which was ªnanced by Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (grant 22530255). We are grateful for this ªnancial support and for logistic support from ICSEAD. We thank Kiichiro Fukusaku, Lin See Yan, and Naoyuki Yoshino for comments on a previous version, as well as Kornkarun