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...

The past decades witnessed big changes in international trade with the rise of global value chains. Some countries, such as China, Poland, and Vietnam rode the tide, while other countries, many in the Africa region, faltered. This paper studies the determinants of participation in global value...

The debate on trade and growth increasingly focuses on the composition of exports. Exports of more "sophisticated" products appear to be positively correlated with growth, and upgrading the quality of exports is high on the policy agenda of many countries. This study presents evidence suggesting...

We provide an alternative explanation for the commonly observed FDI in developed countries (DCs) considering a vertically related market structure and endogenizing vertical technology transfer (VTT). We show that even though VTT is more costly in a less developed country (LDC), a multinational...

Using data on Chinese large-scale overseas investment and project contracts by sector, we analyze whether Chinese outward activity (COA) before the crisis worsened or alleviated the contractionary phases in developing countries. We find that, on average, COA did not increase vulnerability to the...

In this article we study start-up investments in developing countries. Using a representative firm, we wonder how relevant are the effects of taxation and risk on new business activities. It is worth noting that developing countries are usually characterized by three main characteristics....

Multinational corporations can shift income into low-tax countries through transfer pricing and debt financing. While most developed countries use thin capitalization rules to limit the extent to which a subsidiary can be financed with internal debt, a number of developing countries do not. In...

This paper models a multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) as a coordination device. Multinational enterprises can invest in any number of countries. Without a multilateral investment agreement, expropriation triggers an investment stop by the single MNE. Under a multilateral agreement,...

This paper investigates whether the higher prevalence of South multinational enterprises (MNEs) in risky developing countries may be explained by the experience that they have acquired of poor institutional quality at home. We confirm the intuition provided by our analytical model by empirically...

The governments of many developing countries seek to attract inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) through the use of tax incentives for multinational corporations (MNCs). The effectiveness of these tax incentives depends crucially on MNCs' residence country tax regime, especially where the...