In this paper we examine optimal strategic trade p[olicy under oligopoly with many home and foreign firms when the firms have different levels of efficiency and where a trade-off exists between the subsidy bill and firms profits. The first-best policy involves a structure of firm specific export...

This paper investigates the effects of different degrees of wage setting centralisation on (1) the incentive of a MNE to locate in a host country, (2) the optimal level of investment it decides to commit to its foreign operation, and (3) the host country's welfare.

This paper analyses the welfare implication for a developing country of using union legalisation as a policy instrument to attract inwards foreign direct investment. While its presence may discourage a foreign multinational (MNE) from locating in the host country, unionisation is an important...

We characterise optimal trade and industrial policy in dynamic oligopolistic markets. If governments can commit to future policies, optimal first-period intervention should diverge from the profit-shifting benchmark to an extent which exactly offsets the strategic behaviour implied by Fudenberg...

Empirical evidence strongly suggests that R&D increases a firm’s "absorptive capacity" (its ability to absorb spillovers from other firms) as well as contributing directly to profitability. We explore the theoretical implications of this. We specify a general model of the absorptive capacity...

This paper examines how time to build alters strategic investment behaviour under oligopoly. Facing demand uncertainty, firms decide whether to invest early or wait until uncertainty has been resolved. A game that captures time-to-build investment is contrasted with another one in which...

We introduce the concept of cooperative substitutes and complements, and use it to throw light on the conditions for a research joint venture to choose equal levels of R&D by all member firms. We show that the second-order conditions for a symmetric optimum take a particularly simple form,...

This paper presents a model of the interaction between two rival firms based in the same country. Each firm must decide how to serve a foreign market (export or foreign production) and how much to invest in a corporate-wide asset that reduces production costs and/or augments the...

The theory of strategic trade policy yields ambiguous recommendations for assistance to exporting firms in oligopolistic industries. However, some writers have suggested that investment subsidies are a more robust recommendation than export subsidies. We show that, though ambiguous in principle,...

This paper presents a simple model to illustrate the following idea - domestic rivals may be motivated to setup foreign production in the same country because the replication of each other’s foreign direct investment (FDI) facilitates collusive behaviour in the market in which they compete....