This paper analyzes competition for capital between welfare-maximizing gov- ernments in a framework with agglomeration tendencies and asymmetric union- ization. We find that a unionized country's government finds it optimal to use tax policy to induce industry to relocate towards a location with...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) gives foreign firms access to local labor and inputs, thereby harmonizing costs between foreign and domestic firms relative to exports. This paper investigates the welfare effects of such cost harmonization in strategic environments, finding that when the number...

Individual banks differ substantially in their foreign operations. This paper introduces heterogeneous banks into a general equilibrium framework of banking across borders to explain the documented variation. While the model matches existing micro and macro evidence, novel and unexplored...

Zur Versorgung auslandischer Märkte können Unternehmen zwischen Exporten, der Produktion in Zweigniederlassungen und Lizenzvergaben wählen. Mit Blick auf die ersteren beiden Möglichkeiten wird in der jüngeren Literatur vor allem die Nähe-Konzentrationshypothese diskutiert, die besagt, dass...

This paper examines the impact of the emergence of regional blocs (customs unions) on the patterns of inter-bloc and intra-bloc trade when firms have the option to engage in direct investment (FDI). The consequences of bloc formation for exogenously given external tariffs is examined first. When...

This paper introduces the concept of intangible assets in sequential supply chains and the importance of their appropriability in the organizational decision of firms. We focus on the quality of intellectual property rights (IPR) institutions, which on top of the hold-up problem between a...

Combining administrative data on German workers with commercial data on German producers, we find evidence that German subsidiaries of foreign multinationals, while paying a premium relative to other local producers, offer wages of similar size as German subsidiaries of German multinationals....

Combining administrative data on German workers with commercial data on German firms, we find evidence for a distance effect on the multinational wage premium: Foreign multinationals pay lower wages than German multinationals if the ultimate owner is located in close proximity to Germany,...

This paper uses a two country trade and geography model of monopolistic competition to study the effects of wage policies and social policies on the location of industry. It is first shown that a union wage push in one of two otherwise identical countries induces a relocation of firms which...

The field of New Economic Geography (NEG) aims at explaining agglomeration based on increasing returns, monopolistic competition and international factor mobility. Deviating from existing approaches, this paper constructs a theoretical model based on capital market frictions. Firms compete...