There is now substantial evidence that foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) often pay higher wages than corresponding local plants. This paper extends this research by asking whether MNE-local wage differentials depend on whether a plant exports or not. Mean, unconditional, MNE-local wage differentials tended to be somewhat smaller for exporters than for non-exporters in large samples of 11 manufacturing industries of Malaysia in 2000-2004 (31 vs. 44 percent) and Indonesia in 2006 (58 vs. 74 percent), and the gap was particularly conspicuous for Indonesia in 1996 (89 vs. 220 percent). Conditional MNE-local wage differentials that account for the influences of worker education and sex, as well as plant size and capital or energy intensity, on plant-level wages, were smaller but positive and highly significant statistically. Conditional differentials were also smaller for exporters Indonesia in 1996 (24 vs. 32 percent), but larger for exporters in Indonesia in 2006 (12 vs. 5.7 percent) and Malaysia in 2000-2004 (8.8-9.2 vs. 6.2-7.5 percent in pooled OLS estimates and 7.2-7.8 vs. 4.7-6.7 percent in random effects estimates). However, when estimated at the industry level, conditional differentials and were often insignificant, especially for Indonesia in 2006, and industry-level differentials were not clearly related to export status.

This paper examines ownership-related wage differentials for four types of workers employed by medium–large (20 or more employees) wholly foreign multinational enterprises (WFs), joint-venture multinationals (JVs), state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and domestic private firms in Vietnamese manufacturing in 2009. When all sample firms were combined, unconditional JV-private and WF-private wage differentials were 106–124% for managers, 78–87% for professionals and technicians, 56–68% for clerical and support workers and 22–48% for production workers. Correspondingly, conditional wage differentials which account for influences of worker education and sex, in addition to firm capital intensity and size, were smaller and usually significant: 72–78% for managers, 32–36% for professionals and technicians, 23–28% for clerical and support workers and 15–16% for production workers. SOE-private differentials were all much smaller. There was substantial variation at the industry level, but conditional WF-private differentials were positive and significant for most occupations and industries and JV-private differentials were also positive and significant in most industries for highly paid managers or professionals and technicians, but not for lowly paid clerical and support workers or production workers. Most industry-level SOE-private differentials were also insignificant.