In this paper we explore the popular but controversial idea that developing countries benefit from abandoning policy neutrality vis-a-vis trade, FDI and resource allocation across industries. Are developing countries justified in imposing tariffs, subsidies, and tax breaks that imply distortions...

This report, prepared for the Committee on Economic Statistics of the American Economic Association, examines the state of available data for the study of international trade and foreign direct investment. Data on values of imports and exports of goods are of high quality and coverage, but price...

This paper evaluates the influence of host-country financial development on the global operations of multinational firms. Using detailed U.S. data, we provide evidence that host-country financial development increases entry by multinational affiliates, while also decreasing affiliate sales in...

We investigate the relationships among trade, foreign direct investment and the real exchange rate between a set of Southeast Asian and Latin American countries and both the United States and Japan. Foreign direct investment by both Japan and the United States to the Southeast Asian countries in...

In this paper, I examine the argument that free trade may be harmful to less developed countries, because such international competition inhibits the formation of a local entrepreneurial class.I view the entrepreneur as the manager of the industrial enterprise, as well as the agent who bears the...

This paper describes a new, industry-adjusted index of state environmental compliance costs from 1977 to 1994. The index has two principal advantages: it controls for states' industrial compositions, and it can be calculated for 17 years, thus facilitating comparisons both among states and...

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...

This paper develops a North-South product model in which Southern imitation and the North-South flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) are endogenously determined. In the model, a strengthening of IPR protection in the South reduces the rate of imitation, which, in turn, increases the flow of...

Inward and outward direct investment (FDI) stocks and flows tend to go together, across countries and over time. The countries that invest extensively abroad are usually also large recipients of FDI. There is little evidence that flows of FDI are a major influence on capital formation. That lack...