This paper uses a proportional hazard model to study foreign direct investment by Japanese manufacturers in Europe between 1970 and 1994. We divide each firm's investment total into a sequence of individual investment decisions and analyze how firm-specific characteristics affect each decision....

Recent literature on multinational firms has stressed the importance of low productivity as a barrier to the cross-border expansion of firms. But firms may also need external finance to shoulder the costs of entering foreign markets. We develop a model of multinational firms facing real and...

Recent literature on multinational firms has stressed the importance of low productivity as a barrier to the cross-border expansion of firms. But firms may also need external finance to shoulder the costs of entering foreign markets. We develop a model of multinational firms facing real and...

This paper explores the impact of financial constraints on the internationalization strategies of firms. It contributes to the literature by focusing on three aspects: First, the paper studies the impact of financial constraints on exporting relative to FDI. Consistent with theory, the empirical...

This paper studies why multinational firms often share ownership of a foreign affiliate with a local partner even in the absence of government restrictions on ownership. We show that shared ownership may arise, if (i) the partner owns assets that are potentially important for the investment...

We provide firm-level evidence concerning four key facts of services trade in Germany. First, not only firms classified as service firms, but also firms from all industries export and import services. Second, service trade patterns are fairly similar to those in goods trade. Most notably,...

The crisis on international financial markets that started in 2007 has shown the potential links between the financial sector and the real economy. Exports and foreign direct investment (FDI) have declined, presumably not only because of a lack of demand, but also because of restricted access of...