We explore the nature of Business Groups, that is network-like forms of hierarchical organization between legally autonomous firms spanning both within and across national borders. Exploiting a unique dataset of 270,474 headquarters controlling more than 1,500,000 (domestic and foreign)...

Global value chains (GVCs) provide countries with opportunities to diversify trade, and boost productivity and growth by specializing in one stage of the production process. However, for the most part, Latin America and the Caribbean participation in GVCs remains low (18 percent) compared to...

Export is an important contributor to growth with numerous direct and indirect macroeconomic benefits. Moreover, firms engaged in exporting activity tend to have superior characteristics compared to their non-exporting peers. The paper is focused on identifying reasons behind this superiority of...

Multinational production has become increasingly important in recent decades. Countries resort to different industrial policies to influence the geography of this production. In this paper, we focus on a ubiquitous “soft” industrial policy that aims at reducing information barriers -...

Sustainability has become an imperative. Understanding the effects of countries' policies thereon has therefore acquired vital importance. This is particularly the case with ubiquitous policies such as investment promotion. In this paper, we address this timely policy question from an...

We propose a stylized model of a problem-solving organization whose internal communication structure is given by a fixed network. Problems arrive randomly anywhere in this network and must find their way to their respective specialized solvers by relying on local information alone. The...

The paper examines how country tax differences affect a multinational enterprise's choice to centralize or de-centralize its decision structure. Within a simple model that emphasizes the multiple conflicting roles of transfer prices in MNEs – here, as a strategic pre-commitment device and a...

We examine how a multinational’s choice to centralize or de-centralize its decision structure is affected by country tax differentials. Within a simple model that emphasizes the multiple conflicting roles of transfer prices in MNEs - here, as a strategic pre-commitment device and a tax...

We develop an endogenous growth model to study the long run consequences of offshoring with firm heterogeneity and incomplete contracts. In so doing, we model offshoring as the geographical fragmentation of a firm's production chain between a home upstream division and a foreign downstream one....

India presents an unique example of manufacturing capability in most sectors, but low integration into GVCs. This paper examines the reasons for India's low integration into GVCs, especially in the manufacturing sector. It argues that one of the reasons for India's low integration into GVCs is...