Four Essays on the Effects of Foreign Direct Investment on the French Labor Market.

Summary This thesis aims to analyze and identify the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the French labor market. The first chapter reviews the recent literature on this issue. The other chapters analyze empirically and theoretically the effect of FDI on the labor market. Using recent and detailed data on French firms and employees, several aspects of the labor market are addressed. First, the thesis analyzes the effect of FDI on employment (chapter 2), and then focuses on its effect on French wages (chapter 3). Chapter 4 identifies a potential channel through which FDI could affect the labor market. This channel is organizational change within the parent company. Finally, chapter 5 identifies the consequences of organizational change in terms of labor mobility within multinational firms. The results show a selective effect of FDI on employment and wages. Only FDI to a low-wage country affects the labor market and only managers are positively impacted by firms' foreign location strategies. Employment seems to be the adjustment variable at the extensive margin, while wages adjust at the intensive margin. FDI is also responsible for an organizational change within the parent company, causing a shift of authority from the head of the firm to the managers on the one hand, and an increase in the mobility of skilled workers within the firm on the other.