The determinants of export subsidiary formation by US transnationals in developing countries: An inter-industry analysis

This paper examines the inter-industry variation in US transnationals' propensity to invest in export-orientated manufacturing subsidiaries in less developed countries. The results obtained from the empirical analysis indicate that a significant proportion of the variation can be explained by industry characteristics, such as factor-intensity, research and development expenditure, and marketing requirements. This study draws attention to a number of data limitations, and suggests that further progress in this area of investigation will depend on the assembly of a more refined data base.