1,781 research outputs found

    Multinational enterprises international trade, and productivity growth: Firm-level evidence from the United States

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    We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) between the years of 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier work, our results suggest that FDI leads to substantial productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI spillovers is economically important, accounting for about 11% of productivity growth in U.S. firms between 1987 and 1996. In addition, there is some evidence for imports-related spillovers, but it is weaker than for FDI. The paper also gives a detailed account of why our study leads to results different from those found in previous work. This analysis indicates that our results are likely to generalize to other countries and periods. --

    Global Production and Trade in the Knowledge Economy

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    This paper presents and tests a new model of multinational firms to explain a rich array of multinational behaviour. In contrast to most approaches, here the multinational faces costs to transferring its know-how that are increasing in technological complexity. Costly technology transfer gives rise to increasing marginal costs of serving foreign markets, which explains why multinational firms are often much more successful in their home market compared to foreign markets. The model has four key predictions. First, as transport costs between multinational parent and affiliate increase, firms with complex production technologies find it relatively difficult to substitute local production for imports from the parent, because complex technologies are relatively costly to transfer. Second, the activity of affiliates with complex technologies declines relatively strongly as transport costs from the home market increase, both at the intensive and the extensive margin. We also show that as transport costs from the home market increase, affiliates concentrate their imports from the parent on intermediates that are technologically more complex. We test these hypotheses by employing information on the activities of individual multinational firms, on the nature of intra-firm trade at the product level, and on the skills required for occupations with different complexity. The empirical analysis finds strong evidence in support of the model by confirming all four hypotheses. The analysis shows that accounting for costly technology transfer within multinational firms is important for explaining the structure of trade and multinational production.

    The Gravity of Knowledge

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    How large are spatial barriers to transferring knowledge? We analyze the international operations of multinational firms to answer this fundamental question. In our model firms can transfer bits of knowledge to their foreign affiliates in either embodied (traded intermediates) or disembodied form (direct communication). Knowledge transfer costs interact with the knowledge intensity of production to determine the geographic structure of multinationals' input sourcing as well as its competitiveness in foreign markets. The model shows how data on observable trade costs and features of multinationals' global operations reveal the size and nature of knowledge transfer costs. Our empirical analysis confirms the model's predictions using firm-level data, quantifies the aggregate implications of the model for the structure of multinationals' operations, and demonstrates that transfer costs shape the knowledge content of intra-firm trade flows.

    Multinational Enterprises, International Trade, and Productivity Growth: Firm-Level Evidence from the United States

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    We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) between the years of 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier work, our results suggest that FDI leads to significant productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI spillovers is economically important, accounting for about 14% of productivity growth in U.S. firms between 1987 and 1996. In addition, there is some evidence for imports-related spillovers, but it is weaker than for FDI. The paper also gives a detailed account of why our study leads to results different from those found in previous work. This analysis indicates that our results are likely to generalize to other countries and periods.

    Multinational enterprises, international trade, and productivity growth: Firm-level evidence from the United States

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    We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) between the years of 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier work, our results suggest that FDI leads to significant productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI spillovers is economically important, accounting for about 14% of productivity growth in U.S. firms between 1987 and 1996. In addition, there is some evidence for imports-related spillovers, but it is weaker than for FDI. The paper also gives a detailed account of why our study leads to results different from those found in previous work. This analysis indicates that our results are likely to generalize to other countries and periods

    Multinational Enterprises, International Trade, and Productivity Growth: Firm-Level Evidence from the United States

    Full text link
    We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) between the years of 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier work, our results suggest that FDI leads to substantial productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI spillovers is economically important, accounting for about 11% of productivity growth in U.S. firms between 1987 and 1996. In addition, there is some evidence for imports-related spillovers, but it is weaker than for FDI. The paper also gives a detailed account of why our study leads to results different from those found in previous work. This analysis indicates that our results are likely to generalize to other countries and periods

    Investigating the role of experimental introgression in Poplar stress tolerance

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    Introgression is known from many natural populations of plants for its potential for fitness effects in response to changing environments. Genomic footprints of admixture exist in Populus trichocarpa with its sister species, Populus balsamifera due to its natural hybrid zones in Alaska, northwestern Canada, and the Canadian Rockies. The relationship between admixture and phenotypic variations was investigated with experimental crosses between related species of Populus to determine whether the admixed offspring demonstrates hybrid vigor and increased stress-resistance. Additionally, the presence of candidate genes and loci was investigated for adaptive introgression, where a region associated with the trait of interest is heterozygous for P. trichocarpa and P. balsamifera alleles. Experimental offspring were generated by crossing male genotypes containing various ancestry fractions of these two species (from 0% P. balsamifera up to 7% P. balsamifera) with female genotypes of other species used in poplar breeding programs. The resulting offspring were then subjected to a factorial stress experiment of heat and drought in controlled growth chambers. The results demonstrated that a combination of these stressors significantly affected stomatal conductance in offspring from both admixed and non-admixed ancestries. Local ancestry inferences revealed the presence of genomic regions in the parent species associated with stomatal conductance and stomatal density. The study provides insights into the genetic basis of stress resilience in admixed plant populations which could be crucial to understand for conservation and management efforts in the face of climate change

    Global Production and Trade in the Knowledge Economy

    Get PDF
    This paper presents and tests a new model of multinational firms to explain a rich array of multinational behavior. In contrast to most approaches, here the multinational faces costs to transferring its know-how that are increasing in technological complexity. Costly technology transfer gives rise to increasing marginal costs of serving foreign markets, which explains why multinational firms are often much more successful in their home market compared to foreign markets. The model has several key predictions. First, as transport costs between multinational parent and affiliate increase, firms with complex production technologies find it relatively difficult to substitute local production for imports from the parent, because complex technologies are relatively costly to transfer. Second, the activity of affiliates with complex technologies declines relatively strongly as transport costs from the home market increase, both at the intensive and the extensive margin. We also show that as transport costs from the home market increase, affiliates concentrate their imports from the parent on intermediates that are technologically more complex. We test these hypotheses by employing information on the activities of individual multinational firms, on the nature of intra-firm trade at the product level, and on the skills required for occupations with different complexity. The empirical analysis finds strong evidence in support of the model by confirming all four hypotheses. The analysis shows that accounting for costly technology transfer within multinational firms is important for explaining the structure of trade and multinational production.

    A mouse tissue atlas of small noncoding RNA

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    Small noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) play a vital role in a broad range of biological processes both in health and disease. A comprehensive quantitative reference of small ncRNA expression would significantly advance our understanding of ncRNA roles in shaping tissue functions. Here, we systematically profiled the levels of five ncRNA classes (microRNA [miRNA], small nucleolar RNA [snoRNA], small nuclear RNA [snRNA], small Cajal body-specific RNA [scaRNA], and transfer RNA [tRNA] fragments) across 11 mouse tissues by deep sequencing. Using 14 biological replicates spanning both sexes, we identified that ∌30% of small ncRNAs are distributed across the body in a tissue-specific manner with some also being sexually dimorphic. We found that some miRNAs are subject to “arm switching” between healthy tissues and that tRNA fragments are retained within tissues in both a gene- and a tissue-specific manner. Out of 11 profiled tissues, we confirmed that brain contains the largest number of unique small ncRNA transcripts, some of which were previously annotated while others are identified in this study. Furthermore, by combining these findings with single-cell chromatin accessibility (scATAC-seq) data, we were able to connect identified brain-specific ncRNAs with their cell types of origin. These results yield the most comprehensive characterization of specific and ubiquitous small RNAs in individual murine tissues to date, and we expect that these data will be a resource for the further identification of ncRNAs involved in tissue function in health and dysfunction in disease
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