This paper studies the effect of corruption on foreign direct investment. The sample covers bilateral investment from fourteen source countries to forty-five host countries during 1990-91. There are three central findings. (1) A rise in either the tax rate on multinational firms or the...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relations among characteristics of U.S. firms, their tendency to invest abroad, and their choice of production locations. The larger the firm, and the higher its profitability, capital intensity, technological Intensity, and the skill level ofits labor...

Swedish firms acquired by foreigners were considerably larger than the average firms in their industries. They were relatively low in value added per employee at the time of takeover and before, a characteristic we take to indicate relatively low profitability, capital intensity, or...

The 'pollution haven' hypothesis refers to the possibility that multinational firms, particularly those engaged in highly polluting activities, relocate to countries with weaker environmental standards. Despite the plausibility and popularity of this hypothesis, the existing literature has found...

This paper studies the impact of corruption in a host country on foreign investor's preference for a joint venture versus a wholly-owned subsidiary. There is a basic trade-off in using local partners. On the one hand, corruption makes local bureaucracy less transparent and increases the value of...