Affiliating versus Subcontracting: the Case of Multinationals

An aspect of globalization that has attracted increased attention in recent years is intra-firm trade. Actually, an intra-firm trading relationship indicates that an affiliate is present in the partner country. Hence, distinguishing intra- and extra-firm dimensions gives us access to the boundaries of multinationals and consequently to their policies of development. More precisely, the paper aims at determining factors of the trade-off faced by multinationals between affiliating and subcontracting a relocated segment of production or distribution, using microdata on intra- and extra-firm bilateral trade of affiliates located in France. First, a microeconomic model is developed. The idea is to compare the profit made by a multinational if trade occurs within it with that made if trade occurs with another firm. On the one hand internalization may generate additive fixed costs, on the other it may enable the multinational to keep its comparative advantage gained through the development of firm-specific assets. The model is then empirically validated. The advertising intensity and the technological level of production are notably associated with intra-firm trade and thus with internalization. Actually, both brand and quality are shown to be profit accelerators in the event of affiliating. Essential means of product differentiation, these two factors are enough for multinationals to cover the additive fixed costs generated by internalization when the market becomes sufficiently large.boundaries of multinationals, intra-firm trade, product differentiation

Factors in business investment: an expectation based approach using business survey data

This paper analyses the determinants of the investment decision by focusing on the firms subjective judgments about the impact of some economic factors. This work uses data from the INSEEs business surveys on investment in the industry, over the period 1991-2002. In October, these data contain firms opinions about the effect of the different determinants on their expected capital expenditures. These original and complex data are first studied by using the aggregate indicators (opinions balances, for example) traditionally used by economic forecasters. We then identify a hierarchy that clearly separates real factors (demand, profits and technology) from financial ones. Nevertheless, this hierarchy is only based on aggregate opinions about factors. That is why we estimate the relationship between opinions about each factor effect and expected investment spending by using a random effects Tobit model applied on individual data. This approach emphasizes on the degree of coherence between opinions and plans. Moreover, capital expenditures are distinguished according to their main economic purpose: expansion of production capacity, modernization or rationalization, replacement and new products manufacturing. One main result is that respondents clearly evaluate each factor effect by referring to specific kinds of spending, and not to their global investment. As an example, opinions about expected demand only appear consistent with investments aiming at expanding production capacity. The previous hierarchy is then globally confirmed and significantly refined.investment decision, expectations, business survey data, panel data, Mundlak's method

Do environmental regulations influence the location behavior of French firms?

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of environmental regulations on the location choices by French firms of their industrial activities. We examine a sample of 3,856 import flows of French firms from foreign industrial subsidiaries in 1999. We first observe that the most pollution intensive goods are paradoxically imported relatively more from the most environmentally stringent countries. Then, we develop a simple static model based on the production cost minimization in order to control for heterogeneous factor costs within countries, distinguishing skilled labor, unskilled labor and capital. However, even with taking these effects into account, the pollution intensity of the imported goods remains positively related to the environmental stringency of the country where they are produced. This suggests that environmental compliance costs are not a major determinant of location compared to other effects, which are not limited to factor costs and can include, for example, agglomeration effects.environmental regulation, relocation, industrial multinational companies

Intrafirm trade, taxation and transfer pricing: evidence from French data

An important share of international exchanges take place within multinational firms, according to internal transfer prices. These prices can be influenced by cross-country differences in corporate taxation. A multinational group can reduce its global fiscal burden through overpricing of goods moving from low-tax to hight tax-countries. Several studies confirm such an influence, most of them on American data. This paper aims at providing insights about the French case, characterized by a relatively high level of corporate taxation. The empirical analysis is based on a survey which provides micro-data on the intra-firm trade of French affiliates of multinational firms and therefore enables to investigate to which extent international differences in company taxation influence the pricing of intra-firm transactions. Our main result indicates that a statutory corporate income tax rate in the foreign country one percentage point higher is associated with an (standardized) intra-firm trade balance relative to this country that is almost two percentage points higher.transfer pricing, corporate income tax, intra-firm trade, multinational firms

Environmental Regulation and Industry Location in Europe

This paper estimates the effect of environmental regulation on industry location and compares it with other determinants of location such as agricultural, education and R&D country characteristics. The analysis is based on a general empirical trade model that captures the interaction between country and industry characteristics in determining industry location. The Johnson–Neyman technique is used to fully explicate the nature of the conditional interactions. The model is applied to data on 16 manufacturing industries from 13 European countries. The empirical results indicate that the pollution haven effect is present and that the relative strength of such an effect is of about the same magnitude as other determinants of industry location. A significant negative effect on industry location is observed only at relatively high levels of industry pollution intensity