This paper uses micro-data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership affects the likelihood of manufacturers in developing countries to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences across firms in terms of labor...

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...

Gravity equations explaining foreign affiliates' sales are ad hoc and hence, estimated coeffcients are hard to interpret. We therefore provide the theoretical underpinnings of the gravity equation applied to the analysis of sales of foreign affiliates of multinational firms. We argue that the...

This paper examines the link between a firm's ownership of productive assets and its choice of foreign-market entry strategy. We find that, controlling for industry - and country-specific characteristics, the most productive firms (i.e., those owning the most assets) will enter through...

We derive gravity equations from three different general equilibrium models incorporating multinational firms. We show that gravity equations are particularly adapted to the analysis of foreign affiliates' activities of multinational firms. However, the different theoretical models lead to...