We introduce a general quantifiable framework to study the location decisions of multinational firms. In the model, firms choose in which locations to pay the fixed costs of setting up production, taking into account potential complementarities among production locations. The firm's location...

This paper analyzes the effects of the U.S. tax treatment of the R&D activities of American multinationals. Recent evidence indicates that the level of R&D spending is highly sensitive to its after-tax cost. The U.S. Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced the tax deductions that many American firms can...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relations among characteristics of U.S. firms, their tendency to invest abroad, and their choice of production locations. The larger the firm, and the higher its profitability, capital intensity, technological Intensity, and the skill level ofits labor...

The explosion of multinational activities in recent decades is rapidly transforming the global landscape of industrial production. But are the emerging clusters of multinational production the rule or the exception? What drives the offshore agglomeration of multinational firms in comparison to...

This paper considers the effect of taxation on the location of foreign direct investment (FDI) and taxable income reported by multinational firms with particular attention to the regional dynamics of tax competition and the role of chains of ownership. Confidential affiliate-level data are used...

In a stylized model of multinational firms choosing host locations for their global value chains, host-country governments choose the strength of collective-bargaining rights that allow their workers to receive a share of the resulting quasi-rents. Each government must trade off the direct...

Climate-related risks have increased in recent decades, both in terms of the frequency of extreme weather events (physical risk) and implementation of climate-change mitigation policies (transition risk). This paper explores whether multinational firms react to such risks by altering their...

Recent theories of economic geography suggest that firms in the same industry may be drawn to the same locations because proximity generates positive externalities or 'agglomeration effects.' Under this view, chance events and government inducements can have a lasting influence on the...

This paper examines the effect of taxation on foreign investment and on business location within the United States. The idea is to compare the inter-state distribution of investments from certain foreign countries (those with foreign tax credit systems) with the distribution of investments from...

We study the effects of tax laws on foreign direct investment (FDI) and direct investment abroad (DIA), distinguishing in each case between investment financed by retained earnings and investment financed by transfers from abroad. We find that tax policy, through its effect on the rate-of-return...