This paper identifies a new industry-equilibrium channel through which a firm's productivity affects its organizational choice. In a two-country model with firm heterogeneity and incomplete contracts, we show that the degree of input specificity and the hold-up friction in an outsourcing...

This paper examines the role of contracting institutions on a multinational firm's optimal ownership strategy. We develop a model in which both a multinational firm and its local joint venture partner can ex post engage in costly rent-seeking actions to increase their ex ante agreed upon revenue...

Located at the heart of global value chains (GVCs), intangibles are documented to have a high and rising value capture, and to depend on both agglomeration economies and global connectedness for their performance. In this paper, we study how the distinct nature of intangibles require countries...

In a seminal contribution, Yi (2003) has shown that vertically specialized trade should be more sensitive to changes in trade costs than regular trade. Yet empirical evidence of this remains remarkably scant. This paper uses data from China's processing trade regime to analyze the role of trade...