Transferring low tech manufacturing jobs to cheap labour countries is often seen by part of the general public and policy makers as a step into the de-industrialisation of the European economies. However, several recent contributions have shown that the effects on home economies are rarely...

This Paper examines which firms from a heterogeneous pool are more likely to join together and form a research joint venture (RJV). It differs from previous contributions as it introduces a set of realistic hypothesis on the characteristics of research co-operation and information sharing....

Foreign activities of MNEs have important effects on home economies. The debate is ambiguous: concerns that foreign investments deplete domestic economies are often coupled with the pride for doing good business in foreign countries. This Paper addresses this question by defining the appropriate...

This Paper provides a cross-country perspective to the firm-level analysis of the relation between foreign ownership and labour demand. We estimate labour demand equations in 11 European countries using dynamic panel data techniques on samples that permit to distinguish the ownership status of...

The global pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI) is quite similar to the world trade pattern. In particular, intra-industry FDI between rich nations is almost as pervasive as intra-industry trade among rich nations. In the ‘standard’ multinational corporation (MNC) model (of Markusen,...

We introduce incomplete outsourcing contracts in an otherwise standard model of MNEs based on the trade-off between proximity and concentration. This has implications for the choice between export and FDI and the way this is affected by the distance between source and host countries. In...

In this paper we investigate the firm-specific factors that account for the decision to invest in low-wage countries on the part of Italian firms in the textiles and clothing sector. This analysis is motivated by the fact that our survey data show, between 1990 and 1997, a decline of average...

This paper examines whether multinational banks have a stabilising or a destabilising role during times of financial distress. With a focus on Europe, it looks at how these banks’ foreign affiliates have been faring during the recent financial crisis. It finds that retail and corporate lending...

We propose an endogenous growth model with offshoring to investigate its effects on product innovation and growth in the country of origin. Offshoring is associated with reduced feedback from offshored plants to domestic labs as well as coordination problems between the offshored and domestic...

This paper is a first attempt to analyse the determinants of inter-firm R&D agreements between advanced and developing countries, i.e. between firms with asymmetric endowments of knowledge. It shows that international dispersion of R&D activity by multinationals also concerns developing...