This paper estimates the extent to which stringent environmental standards in some U.S. states have deterred foreign direct investment (FDI). It addresses three shortcomings in the existing literature on the economic effects of environmental regulations. First, it avoids comparing regulations in...

This paper examines the effects of state corporate income taxes on the location of foreign direct investment in the U.S., taking into account the endogeneity of taxes and the outside options of investors. States have a set of characteristics that influence investors' decisions, some of them are...

This paper examines how employment protection legislation affects location decisions of multinationals. Based on a simple theoretical framework, we estimate an empirical model, using OECD-data on bilateral FDI-flows and employment protection indices. We find that, while an "unfavourable"...

This document examines foreign direct investment (FDI) when multinationals and labour unions bargain over labour contracts and lobby the self-interested government for taxation and labour market regulation. We demonstrate that right-to-manage bargaining predicts higher returns for FDI than does...

This paper investigates the link between nationality of ownership and wage elasticities of labour demand at the level of the plant. In particular, we examine whether labour demand in multinationals becomes less elastic with respect to the wage if the plant has backward linkages with the local...

In this paper we investigate the choice of FDI versus joint-venture, made by Italian, Spanish and Swiss multinationals in China, as shaped by the risk of Dissipation of Intangible Assets. Probit estimates, based on an entirely new firm-level dataset, constructed by the author, show that FDI is...

The paper studies the effects of a one-sided minimum wage in a two-country model of intra-industry trade, in which multinational firms arise endogenously. With positive levels of intra-industry trade the adverse employment and welfare effects of an asymmetric minimum wage are significantly...

The paper focuses on multinational companies' creation of linkages with local firms in the electronics industry. Evidence is drawn from a novel data-set, covering international operations of the top European and US electronics companies, over the 1984-1995 period. Econometric tests are provided...