This paper analyses how international outsourcing affects plant productivity, with the major contribution lying in the identification of heterogeneous effects for firms with differing internationalisation status. The results point to a striking pattern: the status of being an outsourcer matters...

This paper examines the relationship between foreign ownership and productivity, paying particular attention to two issues neglected in the existing literature Ö the role of multinationals in service sectors and the importance of R&D activity conducted by foreign multinationals. We review...

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)...

In this paper we are able to analyze firms' entry decision into the export market. In contrast to previous studies it is possible to control for the effects of management characteristics and human capital variables, besides commonly used firm characteristics. We first motivate our empirical...

The causality from outsourcing, defined as the procurement of inputs from outside the boundaries of the firm, to productivity is tested for a large panel of Irish manufacturing firms. Theory suggests that as firms outsource more 'non-core' activities to specialized providers, productivity due to...

This paper highlights the crucial role played by international access to intermediate inputs to explain firm-level performance, via two channels simultaneously: trade and FDI. We develop a simple theoretical model showing that trade integration of input market entails an efficiency improvement...

This paper examines the relationship between firms' productivity improvement and the volume of exports, and shows that it can be sometimes negative. Specifically, we simultaneously take into account intermediate retailers (i.e., vertically) and multimarket linkages (i.e., horizontally). We find...

This paper provides an analysis of how a firm's decision to serve a foreign market by exporting or by engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) affects firm productivity, when productivity is endogeneous as a function of training. The main result of our paper is that, with endogeneous...

This paper uses a rich panel data set of Indian manufacturing firms to analyze the effects of domestic and international acquisitions on various outcomes at target firm and product level. We apply recent methodological advances in the estimation of production functions together with information...

When foreign companies acquire German firms as part of an acquisition or merger, government representatives and unions often fear production relocation as well as a loss of influence and rising unemployment. The discussion concerning the planned acquisition of the Hochtief Group by a Spanish...