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,...

Firms cluster their economic activities to exploit technological and informational spillovers from other firms. Spillovers through the entry of multinational firms can be particularly beneficial to domestic firms because of their technological superiority. Yet, the importance of foreign firm's...

We analyze whether firms that establish their first affiliate in a foreign country have a different pattern of growth in output, employment, capital and productivity than firms that remain national. We use firm-level data on German multinational activities and appropriate matching techniques to...

The business literature has long recognized the importance of multinationals’ distribution networks. The empirical analysis of distribution-oriented FDI has, however, received little attention which is at least partly due to the lack of appropriate data. We outline a slightly modified version...

We derive and estimate an econometric model of export versus foreign production using firm-level data on foreign activities of German multinationals. Proximity-concentration theory which we derive our model from shows that firms face a trade-off between concentrating their production at home to...

Economic theory provides two main explanations why changes in exchange rates can affect foreign direct investment (FDI). According to a first explanation, FDI reacts to exchange rate changes if there are information frictions on capital markets and if the investment by firms depends on their net...