A large fraction of affiliates owned by multinational manufacturing companies operate in the wholesale and retail sectors. This paper proposes a model of trade, horizontal FDI, and export-supporting FDI (ESFDI). ESFDI reduces distribution costs abroad, while production remains at home. ESFDI...

We study how unionization affects competitive selection between heterogeneous firms when wage negotiations can occur at the firm or at the profit-centre level. With productivity specific wages, an increase in union power has: (i) a selection-softening; (ii) a counter-competitive; (iii) a...

We use plant-level data to study the link between the local availability of services and the decision of manufacturing firms to source materials from abroad. We develop a model to generate predictions about how the intensity of international sourcing of materials depends on the availability of...

State trading enterprises (STEs) are widely used and can be viewed as instruments of trade policy. We analyse two aspects: the first is their potential trade distorting effect; the second is how they modify the case for the politically optimal tariff. We show that the STE can reduce the need for...

This paper uses a heterogeneousfirms model to examine the procompetitive channel through which FDI affects national welfare. The model shows that the country from which FDI originates experiences a welfare gain following liberalization. However, a counterintuitive finding is that the welfare of...

We develop a matching model of foreign direct investment to study how multinational firms choose between greenfield investment, acquisitions and joint ownership. Firms must invest in a continuum of tasks to bring a product to market. Each firm possesses a core competency in the task space, but...

Is there evidence from China's pre-WTO accession period that newly imposed U.S. or EU import restrictions deflect Chinese exports to third markets? We examine this question by drawing on a newly constructed data set of U.S. and EU product-level import restrictions on Chinese trade imposed...

We analyze the impact of labour market rigidities on tax competition between two imperfectly integrated countries. Following a shift from a competitive to a unionized labour market in both countries, the capital tax can be adjusted upward in the country with the less rigid labour market, whereas...

We analyse a very rich and unique panel database that provides information on exports at the firm-product level. Motivated by the recent theory of multi-product firms, we investigate what determines the survival of products in the export mix to find that, in export dynamics, characteristics of...