Does distance matter in spillover?¹

Abstract Our aim in this paper is twofold: to find whether FDI causes horizontal or vertical productivity spillovers to domestically‐owned Hungarian manufacturing firms, and to see if distance matters in spillovers. For this exercise we use a large panel of Hungarian firms and different panel models. Consistently with previous research, at the country level, we find positive vertical spillovers but no evidence of positive horizontal spillovers. By taking distance into consideration, however, we find positive horizontal spillovers for domestic firms close to foreign‐owned firms. By constructing spillover measures weighted by distance, we find similar patterns. Our results underline the importance of labour market rigidity and the local nature of knowledge in the case of horizontal spillovers.