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. Decentralised and centralised...

We construct a model in which oligopolistic firms decide where to locate. Firms choose to locate either in a country where employment protection implies costly output adjustments or in one without adjustment costs. Using a two-period three-stage game with uncertainty it is demonstrated that...

In this paper we examine optimal strategic trade policy under oligopoly with many home and foreign firms when the firms have different levels of efficiency. The first-best policy involves a structure of firm-specific export subsidies and export taxes in which the government favours the most...

This paper investigates how the mode of entry into a foreign market can be influenced by the intensity of R&D in an industry and the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in a recipient country. It then analyzes the link between the IPR regime and policies that place limits on the...

In this paper we consider the case for subsidies towards firms which generate R&D spillovers in open economies. We show that in the presence of strategic behaviour by firms many expected results are overturned. Local R&D spillovers to other domestic firms may justify an R&D tax rather than a...

In this chapter we present a selective analytic survey of some of the main results of trade under oligopoly. We concentrate on three topics: oligopoly as an independent determinant of trade, as illustrated by the reciprocal-markets model of Brander (1981); oligopoly as an independent rationale...

This Paper examines optimal trade policy in a two-period oligopoly model, with a home and a foreign firm choosing capital and output. Demand uncertainty, resolved in period two, gives rise to a trade-off between strategic commitment and flexibility in the firms’ investment decisions. When the...

This paper examines the rationale for multilateral agreements to limit investment subsidies. The welfare ranking of symmetric multilateral subsidy games is shown to depend on whether or not investment levels are "friendly", raising rival profits in total, and/or strategic complements, raising...

We examine optimal industrial and trade policies in a series of dynamic oligopoly games in which a home and a foreign firm compete in R&D and output. Alternative assumptions about the timing of moves and the ability of agents to commit intertemporally are considered. We show that the home export...

We characterize 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...