Network Structure of French Multinational Firms

This paper develops a network approach of French multinationals' host countries network. It reveal and describe the expansion pattern of multinational firms through their affiliates, identifying core destinations, centralization degree of the network, and favorite countries linkages. The main results are in line with previous findings on foreign investment decision, location choices and gradual pattern. Further findings appear when looking at the network structure over time, showing an increasing geographical dispersion of affiliates. In addition, building directed networks allows us to observe upstream and downstream stages of internationalization. I later examine separately top productive firms network from least productive ones, and show the sensitivity of network structure to firm heterogeneity.