IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14072.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firm Heterogeneity and the Structure of U.S. Multinational Activity: An Empirical Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Yeaple

Abstract

We use firm-level data for U.S. multinational enterprises (MNE) and the model of firm heterogeneity first presented in Helpman, Melitz, and Yeaple (2004) to make four empirical contributions. First, we show that the most productive U.S. firms invest in a larger number of foreign countries and sell more in each country in which they operate. Second, we assess the importance of firm heterogeneity in the structure of MNE activity. Third, we use the model to identify the mechanisms through which country characteristics affect the structure of MNE activity. Finally, we provide a systematic assessment of the model's shortcomings in order to inform the development of new theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Yeaple, 2008. "Firm Heterogeneity and the Structure of U.S. Multinational Activity: An Empirical Analysis," NBER Working Papers 14072, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14072
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14072.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2003. "Export versus FDI," NBER Working Papers 9439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Richard Baldwin & James Harrigan, 2011. "Zeros, Quality, and Space: Trade Theory and Trade Evidence," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 60-88, May.
    3. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2004. "Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 300-316, March.
    4. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Firms in International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 105-130, Summer.
    5. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2011. "An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence From French Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1453-1498, September.
    6. Wolfgang Keller & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2008. "Global Production and Trade in the Knowledge Economy," NBER Working Papers 14626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Brainard, S Lael, 1997. "An Empirical Assessment of the Proximity-Concentration Trade-off between Multinational Sales and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 520-544, September.
    8. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    9. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    10. Sourafel Girma & Richard Kneller & Mauro Pisu, 2005. "Exports versus FDI: An Empirical Test," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(2), pages 193-218, July.
    11. Head, Keith & Ries, John, 2008. "FDI as an outcome of the market for corporate control: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 2-20, January.
    12. Volker Nocke, 2006. "A Gap for Me: Entrepreneurs and Entry," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(5), pages 929-956, September.
    13. Head, Keith & Ries, John, 2003. "Heterogeneity and the FDI versus export decision of Japanese manufacturers," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 448-467, December.
    14. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    15. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2006. "Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_022, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin Andersson & Hans Lööf, 2009. "Learning‐by‐Exporting Revisited: The Role of Intensity and Persistence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(4), pages 893-916, December.
    2. Wolfgang Keller & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2008. "Global Production and Trade in the Knowledge Economy," NBER Working Papers 14626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Deniz Erdem, 2011. "Foreign Direct Investments, Energy Efficiency and Innovation Dynamics," EIIW Discussion paper disbei189, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    4. Bas, Maria, 2012. "Input-trade liberalization and firm export decisions: Evidence from Argentina," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 481-493.
    5. Co, Catherine Yap, 2010. "Intra- and inter-firm US trade," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 260-277, April.
    6. Erdal Yalcin & Davide Sala, 2014. "Uncertain Productivity Growth and the Choice between FDI and Export," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 189-208, February.
    7. Yong-Seok Choi & Siwook Lee, 2013. "Productivity, Markups and Export Intensity: Evidence from Korean Manufacturing," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 29, pages 329-350.
    8. Mr. Stanley B Watt, 2007. "Firm Heterogeneity and Weak Intellectual Property Rights," IMF Working Papers 2007/161, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Hongshik Lee, 2010. "Decision To Invest Abroad: The Case Of South Korean Multinationals," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 281-302, May.
    10. Deniz Erdem, 2012. "Foreign direct investments, energy efficiency, and innovation dynamics," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 24(2), pages 119-133, June.
    11. WAKASUGI Ryuhei & Hongyong ZHANG, 2012. "Effects of Ownership on Exports and FDI: Evidence from Chinese firms," Discussion papers 12058, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2009. "Firm heterogeneity and the structure of U.S. multinational activity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 206-215, July.
    2. Shawn Arita & Kiyoyasu Tanaka, 2014. "Heterogeneous multinational firms and productivity gains from falling FDI barriers," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(1), pages 83-113, February.
    3. Chen, Maggie Xiaoyang & Moore, Michael O., 2010. "Location decision of heterogeneous multinational firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 188-199, March.
    4. Andrew B. Bernard & Marco Grazzi & Chiara Tomasi, 2010. "Intermediaries in international trade : Direct versus indirect modes of export," Working Paper Research 199, National Bank of Belgium.
    5. Maurice Kugler & Eric Verhoogen, 2012. "Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 307-339.
    6. Girma, Sourafel & Gorg, Holger & Strobl, Eric, 2004. "Exports, international investment, and plant performance: evidence from a non-parametric test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 317-324, June.
    7. Naoto Jinji & Xingyuan Zhang & Shoji Haruna, 2022. "Deep Integration, Global Firms, and Technology Spillovers," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-981-16-5210-3, June.
    8. Ignat Stepanok, 2015. "Cross-border Mergers and Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 111-136, February.
    9. Jens M. Arnold & Katrin Hussinger, 2010. "Exports versus FDI in German Manufacturing: Firm Performance and Participation in International Markets," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 595-606, September.
    10. Elhanan Helpman, 2014. "Foreign Trade and Investment: Firm-level Perspectives," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(321), pages 1-14, January.
    11. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    12. Munch, Jakob R. & Nguyen, Daniel X., 2014. "Decomposing firm-level sales variation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 317-334.
    13. Todo, Yasuyuki & Sato, Hitoshi, 2014. "Effects of presidents’ characteristics on internationalization of small and medium firms in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 236-255.
    14. TODO Yasuyuki & SATO Hitoshi, 2011. "Effects of CEOs' Characteristics on Internationalization of Small and Medium Enterprises in Japan," Discussion papers 11026, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    15. Elhanan Helpman, 2006. "Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 589-630, September.
    16. Gopinath, Munisamy & Sheldon, Ian M. & Echeverria, Rodrigo, 2007. "Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade: Implications for Agricultural and Food Industries," Trade Issues Papers 9349, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    17. Dick Nuwamanya Kamuganga, 2012. "The Linkage between Outcome Differences in Cotton Production and Rural Roads Improvements - A Matching Approach," IHEID Working Papers 15-2012, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    18. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    19. Kiyota, Kozo & Urata, Shujiro, 2008. "The role of multinational firms in international trade: The case of Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 338-352, August.
    20. Baldwin, Richard E. & Robert-Nicoud, Frederic, 2008. "Trade and growth with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 21-34, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14072. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.