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...

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,...

This paper analyzes the tax haven investment behavior of multinational firms from a country that exempts foreign income from taxation. High foreign tax rates generally encourage firms to invest in tax havens, though significant costs of reallocating taxable income dampen these incentives. The...

Are multinational enterprises, MNEs, more likely than non-MNEs to close down their plants due to their footloose character? The results from using a panel of all Swedish manufacturing plants over the period 1993 and 2002 suggest that MNE plants, in particular Swedish MNE plants, have a higher...

This paper provides the first in-depth study of the organization of knowledge in multinational firms. The paper develops a theoretical model that studies how firms optimally split knowledge between their headquarters and their production plants if communication costs impede the access of...

We investigate the hypothesis that workers in foreign-owned establishments face greater job insecurity. Using linked employer employee data from Germany, we examine whether foreign-owned establishments are more likely to exit production, and whether workers in foreign-owned establishments face...