This paper examines how free-trade agreements and customs unions affect the location of foreign direct investment (FDI) and social welfare, taking into account that governments may adjust taxes and external tariffs to compete for FDI. Conditions are identified under which a free-trade agreement...

We use Japanese microdata to examine how financial market frictions affect foreign direct investment (FDI). The Japanese land price bubble and banking trouble in the late 1980s and early 1990s serve as a quasi natural experiment to identify two possible transmission channels from financial...

This paper examines the pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI) in producer services. We develop a model of FDI in these services and test its predictions using panel data on U.S.FDI in 25 host countries from 1976 to 1995. We find evidence that, in addition to governmental and cultural...

This paper argues that the large reduction in corporate tax rates and only gradual widening of tax bases in many countries over the last decades are consistent with tougher international competition for foreign direct investment (FDI). To make this point we develop a model in which governments...

This paper uses micro-data from the World Bank Investment Climate Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership and access to external finance affect the likelihood of manufacturers in emerging markets to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for...

We examine how foreign ownership of a firm affects the variety of goods that the firm exports and the number of countries it trades with. We construct a simple theoretical model of how foreign ownership may affect these extensive margins of exports and take this model to data from Germany, one...

This paper examines the link between a firm’s ownership of productive assets and its choice of foreign-market entry strategy. We find that, controlling for industry- and country-specific characteristics, the most productive firms (i.e., those owning the most assets) will enter through...