In this paper, I will first give an overview of the current regulation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the WTO and OECD. Then I will criticise the draft of the multilateral agreement on investment (MAI), that was proposed as a new framework for FDI. Though the MAI has failed, the original...

Trade economists have for long considered gravity models to estimate unexhausted potentials for bilateral trade. Similar to the discrepancy between "normal" and "actual" bilateral trade, one may ask the question about the difference between "normal" and actual bilateral multinational activity....

The past decades witnessed big changes in international trade with the rise of global value chains. Some countries, such as China, Poland, and Vietnam rode the tide, while other countries, many in the Africa region, faltered. This paper studies the determinants of participation in global value...

The structure of a multinational firm, that is how its affiliates relate to one another, is critical for understanding where multinationals locate, how policy affects them, and their resilience to localized shocks. Here, we review the two main structures - market-seeking horizontal and...

Does anti-migration sentiment threaten internationalization? One major pro-Brexit argument was that it would enable more control over immigration. The most recent US presidential election also focused on immigration. Anti-migration sentiment could be a threat to internationalization, given that...

I present a new stylized fact from a large sample of countries for the period 2000-2006: bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are almost never observed in the absence of bilateral trade flows. I document a similar pattern using bilateral foreign affiliate sales (FAS), aggregating them...

This paper examines the extent to which foreign direct investment (FDI) affects child labor. Using 1995 data for 145 countries, we find that, contrary to common fears, FDI is negatively correlated with child labor. This effect, however, disappears when controlling for per capita income. After...

The lack of information is a relevant obstacle to the export activity of small and medium enterprises. This paper analyzes whether banks can support firms’ export by reducing informational asymmetries about foreign markets. We exploit a large sample of Italian firms for which we merge custom...

This paper explores the international economic effects of forced labour, namely the linkages of forced labour with comparative advantage (trade) and foreign direct investment flows. It discusses several forms and the prevalence of forced labour and presents the results of empirical tests of...

This paper presents summary information on U.S.-located MNEs that engage in both R&D and international trade in selected innovation-related services (charges for IP and R&D services), based on a microdata link of several U.S. economic and R&D surveys. Aggregate linked data suggest that MNEs that...