This Paper builds a multi-country, multi-sector general equilibrium model that explains the decision of heterogeneous firms to serve foreign markets either through exports or local subsidiary sales (FDI). These modes of market access involve different relative costs, some of which are sunk while others vary with sales volume (such as transport costs and tariffs). Relative to investment in a subsidiary, exporting involves lower sunk costs but higher per-unit costs. In equilibrium, only the more productive firms choose to serve the foreign markets and the most productive among this group will further choose to serve the overseas market via FDI. The Paper then explores several implications of the individual firms’ decisions for aggregate export and FDI sales relative to the domestic and foreign market sizes. In particular, it is shown that firm level heterogeneity is an important determinant of relative export and FDI flows. We use the model to derive testable empirical predictions on the relative aggregate export and FDI sales in a given country for a given sector based both on relative costs and the extent of firm level heterogeneity in that sector. These predictions are tested on data of US affiliate sales and US exports in 38 different countries and 52 sectors. The comparative statics based on relative costs are very similar to those tested by Brainard (AER 1997) and are confirmed in our data: sector/country specific transport costs and tariffs have a strong negative effect on export sales relative to FDI. More importantly, our new predictions for the effects of firm-level heterogeneity on the relative export and FDI sales are also strongly supported by the data: more heterogeneity leads to significantly more FDI sales relative to export sales.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
3741.
Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2003.
"Export versus FDI,"
NBER Working Papers
9439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Find related papers by JEL classification: F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Country and Industry Studies of Trade F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.