Firm-Specific Characteristics and the Timing of Foreign Direct Investment Projects

This paper uses a proportional hazard model to study foreign direct investment by Japanese manufacturers in Europe between 1970 and 1994. We divide each firm’s investment total into a sequence of individual investment decisions and analyze how firm-specific characteristics affect each decision. We find that total factor productivity is a significant determinant of a firm’s initial and subsequent investments. Parent-firm size does not have a significant influence on the initial decision to invest. Large firms simply have more investments than smaller firms. Other firm-specific characteristics, such as the R&D intensity, export share and keiretsu membership, also play a role in the investment process.foreign direct investment, productivity, hazard model, Japan, keiretsu

Firm-Specific Characteristics and the Timing of Foreign Direct Investment Projects

This paper uses a proportional hazard model to study foreign direct investment by Japanese manufacturers in Europe between 1970 and 1994. We divide each firm?s investment total into a sequence of individual investment decisions and analyze how firm-specific characteristics affect each decision. We find that total factor productivity is a significant determinant of a firm?s initial and subsequent investments. Parent-firm size does not have a significant influence on the initial decision to invest. Large firms simply have more investments than smaller firms. Other firm-specific characteristics, such as the R&D intensity, export share and keiretsu membership, also play a role in the investment process. --Foreign direct investment,productivity,hazard model,Japan,keiretsu

Manufacturers and Retailers in the Global Economy

We develop a general-equilibrium model to capture key features of the retailing and of the manufacturing industry in order to understand how these two industries interact and how labor is allocated between them. We show that the observed shift in employment from manufacturing to retailing, the rise in retailer product assortment and the emergence of slotting allowances in many retail markets are consistent with the global integration of product markets, while higher retail market concentration is best explained by technological change in retailing. We also identify a novel benefit from market integration consisting of efficiency gains in the vertical distribution chain.international trade, product variety, retailing, slotting allowance, multi-product firms

Endogenous Vertical Restraints in International Trade

This paper examines interbrand competition between a domestic and a foreign manufacturer who market their products through intermediaries. The contracts manufacturers offer these intermediaries are endogenous. In equilibrium contracts may specify exclusive territories (ET), depending on the degree of substitutability between products and the level and degree of transparency of trade barriers. Trade liberalization, through lower or more transparent barriers, may lead manufacturers to use ET, thereby substituting private anti-competitive arrangements for government-imposed barriers. This substitution may decrease competition and welfare, and thus create a role for competition policy in a freer trade environment.

Why Parallel Trade may Raise Producers Profits

This paper shows that a manufacturer may benefit from parallel trade. In addition to an intuitive condition about the effect of demand shocks, this occurs when competitive retailers must order inventories before they know the realization of demand and for products whose sale value drops at the end of the demand period. For these types of products, letting retailers trade unsold inventories generally results in larger orders placed with the manufacturer, higher manufacturer profit and higher consumer surplus. The model provides a simple explanation as to why the volume of parallel trade is now very large and accepted by manufacturers for some products such as automobiles, clothes, toys, consumer electronics, musical recordings, cosmetics and perfumes.parallel trade, distribution

Why Parallel Trade May Raise Producers' Profits

This paper shows that a manufacturer may benefit from parallel trade. In addition to an intuitive condition about the effect of demand shocks, this occurs when competitive retailers must order inventories before they know the realization of demand and for products whose sale value drops at the end of the demand period. For these types of products, letting retailers trade unsold inventories generally results in larger orders placed with the manufacturer, higher manufacturer profit and higher consumer surplus. The model provides a simple explanation as to why the volume of parallel trade is now very large and accepted by manufacturers for some products such as automobiles, clothes, toys, consumer electronics, musical recordings, cosmetics and perfumes. --parallel trade,distribution

Tax Rate and Tax Base Competition for Foreign Direct Investment

This paper argues that the large reduction in corporate tax rates and only gradual widening of tax bases in many countries over the last decades are consistent with tougher international competition for foreign direct investment (FDI). To make this point we develop a model in which governments compete for FDI using corporate tax rates and tax bases. The model’s predictions regarding the slope of policy reaction functions and the response of equilibrium tax parameters to trade costs and market size are shown to be consistent with panel data for 43 developed countries and emerging markets. Using estimated policy reaction functions we simulate the effect of regional trade integration and find that this integration has contributed significantly to the observed fall in corporate tax rates.corporate taxes, tax competition, foreign direct investment, multinational firms, free-trade areas, regional integration

Buyer Power in International Markets

This paper investigates the implications for international markets of the existence of retailers/wholesalers with market power. Two main results are shown. First, in the presence of buyer power trade liberalization may lead to retail market concentration. Due to this concentration retail prices may be higher and welfare may be lower in free trade than in autarky, thus reversing the standard e¤ects of trade liberalization. Second, the pro-competitive effects of trade liberalization are weaker under buyer power than under seller power.buyer power, retailing, international trade.

Intra-Industry Adjustment to Import Competition: Theory and Application to the German Clothing Industry

This paper uses an oligopoly model with heterogeneous firms to examine how an industry adjusts to rising import competition. The model predicts that in the short run the least efficient firms in the industry become inactive, surviving firms face a fall in output, mark-ups and profits, and the average productivity of survivors increases. These pro-competitive effects of import penetration on the domestic industry disappear in the long run. The predictions for the short run are confirmed in an empirical study of the German clothing industry.international trade, firm heterogeneity, productivity, clothing industry

Exclusive Dealing and Common Agency in International Markets

This paper investigates the contractual choice between exclusive dealing and common agency in a simple international oligopoly model where products are sold through intermediaries. We find that when trade barriers are high domestic firms tend to adopt exclusive dealing contracts, whereas trade liberalization may lead firms to choose common agency. Irrespective of the level of trade barriers, the equilibrium contract adopted by each manufacturer is shown to decrease domestic welfare as compared to the other possible contract when products are close substitutes.