We set up a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to study the interaction between wage bargaining and foreign direct investment. Thereby, we highlight the incentives of firms to invest abroad in order to improve their bargaining position vis-á-vis local unions and we show how...

The popular Dixit-Stiglitz-Ethier framework proposes that globalization increases the menu of intermediate goods available to downstream firms and that gains from specialization raise welfare unambiguously. This study shows that both results depend critically on the assumption that demand...

Privatization of state-owned enterprises may have important welfare implications, in particular in less developed economies where markets are small and domestic firms are typically relatively weak, both technologically and financially. In these environments, a high-tech foreign investor...

This paper models tax competition for mobile firms that aredifferentiated by their productivities Because taxes affect thedistribution of firms, they affect wages prices, and the number of firmsFrom the social planner’s perspective, optimal taxes efficientlydistribute income between private...

This study analyzes the impact of opening up markets on the diffusion of flexible manufacturing in a general equilibrium framework. With flexible manufacturing, suppliers can service a range of downstream industries and do not have to be concerned about being held up. Instead, the vertical...

The paper examines the impact of efficiency-seeking FDI on factor prices, employment, and output. The analysis shows that when transportation costs fall, companies start relocating labor-intensive production processes to low-wage countries. But this does not necessarily hurt workers in the...

We present a new model of multi-product firms (MPFs) and flexible manufacturing, and explore its implications in partial and general oligopolistic equilibrium. Globalization affects the scale and scope (or intensive margin and intra-firm extensive margin) of MPFs through a competition effect and...

The paper addresses the productivity effects of international trade in the presence of flexible manufacturing and endogenous sunk costs (cost-reducing R\&D). It shows that international trade raises R\&D expenditures, but this will not necessarily boost productivity because of possibly...

This paper derives the impact of market integration on equilibrium firm size and market concentration in horizontally differentiated industries. We show that market concentration (measured by the number of firms) can rise as a consequence of market integration if firms engage in RDcompetition....

Empirical evidence suggests that technological spillovers are limited by distance. The present paper investigates the implications of this observation for the investment decisions of a technologically leading and lagging firm, located in different countries. Technological spillovers may induce...