Shigeyuki Abe, Kyoto University: One of the contributions of this paper is the creation of unique panel data by combining Chinese Custom Trade data, China's Annual Survey of Industrial Firms, Toyo Keizai's Overseas Japanese Companies, and Tokyo Stock Research data by identifying both parent and affiliated firms for seven years from 2000 to 2006. Adopting a discrete-time hazard model used by Hess and Persson (2012), the authors lead to a conclusion that firms in agglomerated regions with more foreign affiliates shorten its duration, while small and medium-sized (SME) firms import for a longer duration.
My first comment is on the use of Toyo Keizai's Overseas Japanese Companies. These data provide the year of establishment of the FDI company. However, the paper does not use this establishment year data for further analysis. The behavior of FDI companies can depend on the year of establishment year, especially with regard to...