Drivers of divestment decisions of multinational enterprises - A cross-country firm-level perspective

Divestment by multinational enterprises is an important yet understudied phenomenon. The few available estimates indicate that about a fifth of all foreign affiliates are divested every five years. This paper presents the findings from a novel cross-country firm-level dataset with financial and ownership information for over 62 000 foreign-owned affiliates from a selection of 41 OECD and G20 countries and their economic groups from 164 home countries for the period 2007-2014. The data allow an assessment of the relative importance of different determinants of divestment in a cross-country setting, including host country policies and bilateral factors, including trade, investment and tax agreements. The findings confirm that parents divested about one of every five foreign-owned affiliates between 2007-2014 and show that a number of host country policy and economic factors, including labour costs and international trade agreements, influence the divestment decision, on top of the firm considerations considered in previous studies.