We study profitable firms with no tax expenses. We find that the proportion of profitable firms that owe zero taxes (zero-tax firms) has increased substantially over the past 70 years, accounting for almost 15% of listed U.S. firms in recent years. Zero-tax firms thus represent a major group of...

This paper uses a large cross-country survey of business firms to assess their influence on government policies. It is found that influence is associated with larger, government-owned firms that have a high degree of ownership concentration. In contrast, foreign ownership matters little. It is...

The paper extends the findings of Coe and Helpman (1995) model of R&D spillovers by considering foreign direct investment (FDI) as a channel for knowl- edge spillovers in addition to imports. Deeper insights on the issue are provided by examining inter-relationship between knowledge spillovers...

The paper tries to evaluate the optimal entry mode of a Multinational Company that is choosing among export, fragmented production structure with assembly-line FDI in LDC or complete production in LDC with FDI. The results show that if the plant installation cost is sufficiently high then the...

Empirical evidence indicates a close association between multinational firms and knowledge capital, a public good within the firm. We model a firm which wishes to exploit its knowledge capital abroad, but whose workers learn all the knowledge necessary for production and can defect and produce...

The paper tries to evaluate the optimal entry mode of a Multinational Company that is choosing among export, fragmented production structure with assembly-line FDI in LDC or complete production in LDC with FDI. The results show that if the plant installation cost is sufficiently high then the...

Empirical evidence indicates a close association between multinational firms and knowledge capital, a public good within the firm. We model a firm which wishes to exploit its knowledge capital abroad, but whose workers learn all the knowledge necessary for production and can defect and produce...

The absorptive capacity represents the ability of enterprises to efficiently absorb and internalise knowledge from outside: it represents the link between firms' capabilities to implement new products and the external stock of technological opportunities, such as those spilled-out from...