We set up a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to study the interaction between wage bargaining and foreign direct investment. Thereby, we highlight the incentives of firms to invest abroad in order to improve their bargaining position vis-á-vis local unions and we show how...

Empirical evidence suggests that technological spillovers are limited by distance. The present paper investigates the implications of this observation for the investment decisions of a technologically leading and lagging firm, located in different countries. Technological spillovers may induce...

The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, we analyze the role of wage rigidities in labor market adjustments to international trade and biased technological progress in a small open economy. We introduce efficiency wages into a neoclassical trade model and show that changes in relative wages are...

The present paper analyses policy competition for foreign direct investment between countries of different size and different market structure. We demonstrate how policy competition affects the location decision of the foreign investor and derive welfare implications. The key variables in our...

In contrast to the predictions of standard models of international trade, globalization critics are claiming that trade destroys diversity. We demonstrate that with endogenous sunk costs, trade integration in horizontally differentiated industries can indeed lead to a fall in diversity....

The popular Dixit-Stiglitz-Ethier framework proposes that globalization increases the menu of intermediate goods available to downstream firms and that gains from specialization raise welfare unambiguously. This study shows that both results depend critically on the assumption that demand...

Privatization of state-owned enterprises may have important welfare implications, in particular in less developed economies where markets are small and domestic firms are typically relatively weak, both technologically and financially. In these environments, a high-tech foreign investor...

This paper models tax competition for mobile firms that aredifferentiated by their productivities Because taxes affect thedistribution of firms, they affect wages prices, and the number of firmsFrom the social planner’s perspective, optimal taxes efficientlydistribute income between private...

This study analyzes the impact of opening up markets on the diffusion of flexible manufacturing in a general equilibrium framework. With flexible manufacturing, suppliers can service a range of downstream industries and do not have to be concerned about being held up. Instead, the vertical...

The paper examines the impact of efficiency-seeking FDI on factor prices, employment, and output. The analysis shows that when transportation costs fall, companies start relocating labor-intensive production processes to low-wage countries. But this does not necessarily hurt workers in the...