Swedish Multinationals and Competition from Low-Wage Countries

This study uses data on Swedish multinationals to estimate cross elasticities of labour demand in different locations. With a vertical decomposition of the firm’s activities, whether there is substitution or complementarity between employment in different parts of the firm will depend on whether wage changes lead to a relocation of activities or simply to changes in marginal costs and demand for inputs in other parts of the firms. We find that there is some evidence of a substitutionary relationship between employment in the Swedish parts of the firms and employment in other high-income locations, but we do not find any evidence of substitution stemming from employment in lowincome locations. We find mainly a relationship of complementarity between employment in different affiliates.