Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet may give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...

We model subsidy competition for a foreign MNC’s investment in a two-country PTA. Taking into account acquisitions as an alternative investment mode weakens the case for subsidising greenfield investment, even for a single government. Considering competition between member states, it widens...

Regional integration affects location decisions of MNCs and therefore influences each member country’s provision of investment incentives, which in turn may trigger relocation. As a consequence, subsidy competition increases as integration proceeds. We analyze the welfare consequences of this...