The macroeconomic effects of import tariffs in a model with multinational firms and foreign direct investment

International Economics and Economic Policy - Recent (de-)globalization tendencies and rising protectionist measures has created new interest in studying the effects of unilateral and world-wide...     

Towards a welfare model of trade and multinational firms with oligopolistic competition

This paper constructs a general equilibrium model in a world with two-symmetric countries. It explains welfare gains from international trade and horizontal Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the economy with firm heterogeneity and variable markups stemming from oligopolistic competition. My model shows that the pro-competitive effects of trade and horizontal FDI happen because trade openness induces an increase in product market competition that reduces markups and toughens selection, increasing aggregate productivity. The most significant contribution of the paper is that multinational firms, via horizontal FDI, produce the most significant welfare gains through the toughest selection and lowest markups.     

Exchange rates and ownership structure of Japanese multinational firms

This paper investigates the determinants of Japanese multinationals’ ownership structures. Unlike most previous studies that neglect the impact of financial constraints on ownership, we add the exchange rate as a measure of wealth and test whether exchange rates affect the ownership share of foreign direct investment projects. After controlling for other variables that affect ownership, we find that exchange rates have a significant effect on the likelihood of wholly owned subsidiaries. We also discuss several other explanations for the link between exchange rates and foreign direct investment and provide evidence that the link stems from capital-market imperfections.     

The incentive limits of firms: A comparative institutional assessment of bureaucracy

Zusammenfassung Die Anreiz-Grenzen für Unternehmen: Eine vergleichende institutionelle Bewertung der Bürokratie. - Das Grundargument dieses Aufsatzes lautet: Selektive Interventionen, durch die eine Kombination von zun?chst unabh?ngigen Unternehmen nur Anpassungsgewinne, aber keine Verluste realisiert, sind nicht durchführbar. Vielmehr werden dann, wenn eine Transaktion aus dem Bereich des Marktes in den Bereich des Unternehmens überführt wird, unweigerlich Leistungsanreize vermindert. Dies ist dann besonders schwerwiegend, wenn es auf Innovationen und deren Ertr?ge ankommt. Diese Anreize erscheinen bei allen Transaktionen, die unter Unsicherheit durchgeführt werden und für die Preise und Kosten von Zeit zu Zeit angepaΒt werden müssen.

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Résumé Les limites aux incitations des entreprises: une analyse comparative institutionnelle de la bureaucratie. — L’argument essentiel de cet article est le suivant: une intervention sélective par laquelle l’intégration réalise des gains adaptifs mais pas de pertes, n’est pas viable. Au contraire, le transfert d’une transaction hors du marché dans l’entreprise est inévitablement associé avec une perte d’incitations. Elles sont particulièrement sérieuses si l’innovation et leur rendement sont importantes. Mais ils apparaissent dans toutes les transactions qui sont faites sous des conditions de l’incertitude et pour lesquelles il faut périodiquement actualiser les prix et les co?ts.

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Resumen Los límites de los incentivos empresariales: un análisis institucional comparado de la burocracia. — El argumenta básico de esta ponencia es que no es posible una intervenci?n selectiva en la cual la integración génère beneficios adaptivos sin sufrir pérdidas. El transferir una transaction del mercado a la empresa, en cambio, significa destruir incentivos. Esto es particularmente severo en circumstancias donde la innovación (y el beneficio de la misma) es importante, pero también para transacciones llevadas a cabo bajo condiciones de inseguridad que exigen una actualizaci?n periódica de precios y costos.

     

Liberalisation, FDI, and productivity spillovers--an analysis of Indian manufacturing firms

The objective of the intensification of reforms in India's trade,technology and industry policies in 1991 was to make Indianindustry competitive. In the light of these attempted changes,the present paper tested two hypotheses, namely (a) whetherliberalisation has improved the productivity of local firms;and (b) whether the spillovers from technology transfer haveincreased in the liberal regime. To test these, techniques frompanel data and stochastic production frontier were employedon 487 firms belonging to 24 three-digit manufacturing industriesfor the period 1989–90 to 1996–97. The results showedthat after liberalisation, the productivity of Indian industry,especially the foreign owned firms, has improved. The econometricresults suggested that only ‘scientific’ non-FDIfirms have benefited from the liberalisation. For the ‘non-scientific’firms, the impact is found to be productivity depressing. Withrespect to spillovers, only those domestic firms, which investedin R&D to decode the spilled knowledge, could benefit.     

Investment strategies by foreign automobile firms in China: A comparative study of Volkswagen,Honda, and Hyundai

The paper uses rolling sample tests to investigate time-varying calendar effects in the Chinese stock market, based on the GARCH (1, 1)-GED model. The Friday effect existed with low volatility at the early stage, but it seems to have disappeared since 1997. The positive Tuesday effect began to appear then. There is a small-firm January effect with high volatility. The turn-of-the month effect has also disappeared in the Chinese stock market since 1997.     

上海期货交易所期铜跨期套利方法

本文通过对价差现象产生的原因以及上海期货交易所期铜两年多来SCF2与SCF6价差的统计分析,总结出一套较为完整的跨期套利方法,最后,作者根据多年来从事期货交易的实践,对交易中应注意的问题进行了论述。     

The gender earnings gap: effects of institutions and firms--a comparative study of French and Australian private firms

This paper uses two employer-employee linked data sets to investigatethe interactive role of labour market institutions and firmwage policies on the gender earnings gap. Extending the Juhnet al. (1991) decomposition methodology, a new decompositionmethodology is proposed to investigate the role of firm wagepolicies on the gender earnings gap. Two countries with differentwage bargaining systems, Australia and France, are used to conducta comparative study. It is found that firm wage policies inAustralia play a much larger role in narrowing the gender earningsgaps than in France. This is mainly due to the fact that Australiahas a more decentralised wage bargaining system and that suchsystem is operated under an environment where there is a strongunion presence.     

The training of Chinese managers: a critical analysis of using overseas training for management development

Chinese policy makers are aware that developing China's managers is crucial to creating competitive advantage in the post-WTO period. Consequently, large numbers of Chinese managers have been sent abroad, particularly to Western and developed countries, on management training courses in order to bring new ideas and approaches to their organisations. This paper questions whether these training programmes have successfully achieved their objectives. An empirical study is adopted to invite the opinions of different stakeholder groups involved in the training process (526 participants). Specific characteristics of China's overseas management training are discussed and problem areas are also explored.     

Foreign production and international hedging in a multinational firm

This paper presents a model of a risk-averse multinational firm under exchange rate risk. The firm, which owns and controls assets in two countries, is engaged in foreign production, sales, and foreign currency forward contracting. The implications of the existence of forward markets in global market decisions are discussed. It is shown that a separation theorem holds. The optimal hedging behavior is also discussed.     

跨国公司在华研发本地化驱动因素分析

进十年来,跨国公司在华研发出现了本地化倾向,这对本地企业技术创新会带来怎样的影响?其本地化的驱动因素是什么? 跨国公司研发本地化的驱动因素和双重效应的机理分析 1.跨国公司在华研发本地化的主要表现 随着跨国公司在华研发的规模和速度加大加快,跨国公司在华研发出现了一个突出的趋势,即本地化,主要表现在以下两个方面: 一是研发人员投入本地化,即大量采用本地研发人员.跨国公司在华研发机构中,多达95％的研发人员来自本地,摩托罗拉中国研究院、微软中国研究开发中心等一些大型跨国公司的本地研发人员甚至超过99％.     

跨国公司R＆D战略与知识管理

对于全球知识经济时代的跨国公司来说,如何迅速确认海外获取的知识并在全公司范围内转移、融合,进而实现战略运用,在今后会越来越重要.本文将考察有助于获得外部知识及促进创新发生的"网络构造战略"和"吸收·变换·组合能力构造战略"这两个战略模式,并在此基础上,提出跨国公司知识获取与转化的模型.     

The changing nature of minority business: A comparative analysis of asian,nonminority, and black-owned businesses

This study compares the performance of small businesses formed between 1976 and 1982 by three groups: 1) Asian males, 2) black males, and 3) nonminority males. Self-employed Asians are outperforming nonminorities and blacks. A subset of black-owned firms—small scale ghetto-oriented operations—is shown to be laggard. Weak internal markets, commercial bank redlining, and loss of entrepreneurial talent are factors in undermining the inner city black business community. Successful black-owned firms are increasingly removed from the ghetto and from serving a minority clientele.     

Spillovers from agglomerations and inward FDI: a multilevel analysis on sub-Saharan African firms

This paper adopts multilevel analysis to study the agglomeration-performance nexus for domestic firms in sub-Saharan Africa. We show that contextual factors can explain up to 30 % of the variance in firms’ productivity, more than half of which depends on the geographic location. Our results show also that African firms’ productivity is positively correlated to the size of the agglomeration when they locate in larger cities specialized in different sectors, while the relation turns negative when they face direct competition from firms in the same industry. These effects are similar in the services and the manufacturing industries, even if in the latter positive spillovers are found to be conditional to the presence of backward and forward linkages with nearby firms. Finally, we are able to show that these effects are also confirmed when domestic firms locate close to foreign multinationals, especially those coming from the South.     

The Exchange Rate and Monetary Policy in Kenya

The paper assesses whether the exchange rate is affected by monetary policy and whether these effects are permanent or transitory. In addition, the paper takes the position that once the exchange rate regime has been chosen it determines the flexibility of monetary policy. The real exchange rate is decomposed into cyclical and permanent components. Causality tests are performed between several measures of monetary shocks (consistent with other empirical works) and the cyclical component of the real exchange rate. The results show that excess money supply predict each other with the cyclical movements of the real exchange rate. In the second stage a model of nominal exchange rate is estimated. Since we find cointegration, the model is estimated with first‐difference of the variables, the cyclical component of the real exchange rate and the cointegrating vectors. The results show that the nominal exchange rate over the period is determined by real income growth, the rate of inflation, money supply growth, the cycles in the real exchange rate movements, the cointegrating vectors and shocks. The first cointegrating vector is normalized with money supply and the second with nominal exchange rate; they show a differential in adjustment speeds reflecting the fact that the nominal exchange rate movements responds quickly to one type of disequilibrium and slowly to the other. For the first vector the adjustment speed is consistent with an exchange rate policy that accommodates monetary disequilibrium in order to protect reserves or with a market determined exchange rate responding to excess money supply. This vector portrays the underlying monetary responses during different exchange rate regimes. In addition the results from causality tests between the official exchange rate and the parallel rate show that even though the parallel market was illegal, the central bank in determining the crawl (during the crawling rate regime) took into account the value of the currency in the parallel market, but did not hook the crawl entirely on the parallel market developments. This shows an element of backward indexation. Ce document cherche àétablir si la politique monétaire a des effets sur le taux de change et si ces effets sont permanents ou transitoires. En outre, il estime qu’une fois le régime de change choisi, celui‐ci détermine la flexibilité de la politique monétaire. Le taux de change réel est décomposé en éléments cyclique et permanent. Des tests de causalité sont effectués entre différentes mesures entrant en jeu dans les chocs monétaires (à l’instar de ce qui se fait dans les autres travaux empiriques) et l’élément cyclique du taux de change réel. Il en résulte que l’excédent de masse monétaire et les fluctuations cycliques du taux de change réel s’annoncent mutuellement. Dans un deuxième temps, un modèle du taux de change réel est élaboré. Dans la mesure où il y a co‐intégration, le modèle est évalué grâce à la différence première des variables, à l’élément cyclique du taux de change réel et aux vecteurs de co‐intégration. Il en découle que le taux de change nominal sur la période est déterminé par la croissance du revenu réel, le taux d’inflation, la croissance de la masse monétaire, les cycles de fluctuation du taux de change réel, les vecteurs de co‐intégration et les chocs. Le premier vecteur de co‐intégration est normalisé avec la masse monétaire et le second avec le taux de change nominal; ils font apparaître un différentiel dans les rythmes d’ajustement, donnant à penser que les fluctuations du taux de change nominal réagissent rapidement à un type de déséquilibre et lentement à un autre. Pour le premier vecteur, le rythme d’ajustement cadre avec une politique de change tenant compte du déséquilibre monétaire afin de protéger les réserves ou avec un taux de change déterminé par le marché en réponse à une masse monétaire excédentaire. Ce vecteur illustre les réponses monétaires sous‐jacentes lors des différents régimes de change. Par ailleurs, les tests de causalité entre le taux de change officiel et le taux parallèle montrent que, malgré le caractère illégal du marché parallèle, la banque centrale prenait en compte la valeur de la monnaie sur le marché parallèle pour déterminer l’ajustement à apporter (à l’époque du régime de parité mobile), sans lier entièrement cet ajustement à l’évolution du marché, ce qui indique une certaine indexation régressive.     

Land costs,government intervention,and migration of firms: The case of China

By using unique firm relocation data in China, we first document the relocation behavior of Chinese firms and show that less government intervention (relative to market forces) can improve economic efficiency by facilitating industrial relocation which saves on costs. Ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, investments have poured into the coastal region, which in turn, have almost tripled land costs in the major coastal cities. We exploit this land cost shock in the early 2000s to identify its effect on the relocation behavior of firms. Specifically, we instrument land price growth with the access of a city to foreign markets (approximated by distance to Shanghai), and then estimate the differential impact of land costs on firms regarding land reliance. Our major findings are as follows: (1) the migration rate of Chinese firms in China is on average 3.2%, (2) Rising land costs drive firms to migrate, and firms that use more land-intensive technology are more compelled to migrate, and (3) in regions where the local government intervention is stronger (the market is less developed), the relocation decision of Chinese firms is distorted in the sense that firms are less likely to relocate despite surging land prices due to government intervention.