We explore the effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth in developing countries, distinguishing between mergers and acquisitions ("M&As") and "greenfield" investment. A simple model captures the key difference between the two types of FDI: unlike greenfield investment, M&As partly...

We estimate the impact of FDI on growth using sectoral data for FDI inflows to China and Vietnam. Previous empirical studies, using either cross-country growth regressions or firm-level micro-econometric analysis, fail to reach a consensus. Our paper is the first to use sectoral FDI inflow data...

Are national or multinational firms better lobbyists? This paper analyzes the extent of national environmental regulation when policy is determined in a lobbying game between a government and firm. We compare the resulting regulation levels for national and multinational firms. We identify three...

This paper investigates if multinationals in.uence 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...

In recent decades, governments around the world have increasingly used various forms of state aid to try to attract and retain the business activity of foreign-owned multinational corporations. Yet, in most cases, this "commercialisation of state sovereignty" (Palan, 2002) has failed to catalyse...

This paper develops a two-country Kaleckian model in which "Northern" firms invest a fixed fraction of total investment in foreign affiliates in the low-wage "South" in order to offshore the production of intermediate goods over time and lower overall labour costs. On the back of this setup...

How migration relates to internationalization has been a prominent question in international economics for a long time and its relevance for policy has increased with the amplified political focus on migration. But the role of migration for internationalization is not as obvious as the standard...

In this paper, we analyze if the enterprise decision to invest in a corrupt market is affected by its experience of other corrupt markets. Our conjecture is that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can learn how to navigate corrupt environments and reduce their corruption-related market entry...

We use data from the U.S. Treasury corporate tax files for 1984 and 1992 to address two related questions concerning the investment decisions of U.S. multinational corporations. First, how sensitive are investment location decisions to tax rate differences across countries? And second, have...