This paper investigates the impact of acquisition FDI on exporting intensity in U.K manufacturing. A quasi-likelihood estimation method is used, and the empirical estimates point to the following conclusions: (i) UK firms with higher exporting intensity are more likely to be foreign takeover targets; (ii) US acquired firms increase their exporting intensity, consistent with the idea that acquis...

We examine the interaction between trade in goods and market power in domestic trade and distribution sectors. Theory suggests a linkage between service-sector competition and goods trade, one supported by econometrics involving import patterns of 21 OECD countries. This points to significant linkages between effective market-access conditions for goods and the structure of the service sector. ...

I show in this paper that incomplete contracts affect a firm’s decision about serving foreign customers through exports or local sales from an affiliated plant. When contracts between two agents within a firm are too costly to write, the share of multinational firms may be higher or lower compared to a world without contractual frictions. Incomplete contracts also provide a novel explanation fo...

This paper investigates if multinationals influence the political process through lobbying more effectively than national firms. First, I introduce a model which contrasts a multinational’s incentives for lobbying with those of a national firm. Then the effect of lobbying on the political decision is analyzed. I conclude that multinationals have smaller incentives to lobby because they have sma...

This document examines foreign direct investment (FDI) when multinationals and labour unions bargain over labour contracts and lobby the self-interested government for taxation and labour market regulation. It is shown that FDI is best protected from expropriation in unionized economies with right-to-manage bargaining, not bargaining over wages and employment. When the labour market is nonunion...

We are concerned with trade in transport services (not cabotage but rather international shipping, transport, and related logistical services) and the importance of competition and market structure in the sector. We examine implications of liberalization for profits, trade, and national gains from trade. Though past GATS maritime negotiations involved the maritime nations, we also flag interest...

Financial constraints have been found to play an important role on various aspects of firm behavior. Yet, their effects on firm survival have been largely neglected. We use a panel of 61496 UK firms over the period 19972002 to study the effects of financial variables on firms’ failure probabilities, differentiating firms into globally engaged and purely domestic. Estimating a wide range of spec...

Do intellectual property rights influence multinationals’ manufacturing location decisions? My theoretical model indicates that countries with strong patent laws attract multinational activity, but only in sectors with relatively long product life cycles. By contrast, firms with short life-cycle technologies are insensitive, because offshore imitation is less likely to succeed before obsolescen...

A key feature of the Swedish economy over last decade and a half has been the rapid internationalisation of its economy, both through FDI and trade. In this paper we consider the relationship between these two trends: whether the effect of increased inward FDI on exports by domestic firms may be positive or negative. The first case may occur as a result of demonstration effects. The second may ...

JEL classification: F15 F23 H25 H73 We set up a model of generalised oligopoly where two countries of different size compete for an exogenous, but variable, number of identical firms. The model combines a desire by national governments to attract internationally mobile firms with the existence of location rents that arise even in a symmetric equilibrium where firms are dispersed. As economic in...