Using a novel Hungarian dataset on firms and their Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), we estimate the impact of hiring expatriate CEOs. By examining foreign acquisitions where the new owner replaces the incumbent CEO with an expatriate or a local CEO, we address the selection into both acquisition...

Seminal theories of the firm posit that firm ownership is allocated to minimize contractual inefficiencies. Yet, it remains unclear how much the optimal ownership choice affects firm performance in practice. This paper provides a first quantification of the gains from optimal ownership within...

The literature has documented a positive effect of foreign ownership on firm performance. But is this effect due to a one-time knowledge transfer or does it rely on continuous injections of knowledge? To shed light on this question we focus on divestments, that is, foreign affiliates that are...

The paper investigates the survival of newly created small and medium enterprises in Brazilian manufacturing taking as reference the 1996-2005 period. The econometric analysis relies on time-varying version of the proportional hazard rate model that controls for unobserved heterogeneity. The...

In this paper, we explore the role of trade in differentiated final goods as well offshoring of tasks for inequality both within and between countries. We emphasize the distinction between managerial and production labor. Production labor is assumed to be a variable input composed of tradable...

The underlying model analyzes the first time foreign market entry decision of a representative investor who can choose between export and FDI. The model combines the proximity-concentration trade-off framework with the real option methodology and sheds light on the effects of productivity...

This paper investigates the role of firm productivity in drawing firm boundaries in global sourcing. Our analysis focuses on how productivity affects the allocation of ownership rights between the headquarter of a firm and an intermediate input supplier (vertical integration vs. outsourcing), as...

Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines and...