Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Location Choice and Employment Decisions: A Comparison of German and Swedish Multinationals

Contents:

Author Info

  • Sascha O. Becker
  • Karolina Ekholm
  • Robert Jäckle
  • Marc-Andreas Mündler

Abstract

Using data for German and Swedish multinational enterprises (MNEs), this paper assesses international employment patterns. It analyzes determinants of location choice and the degree of substitutability of labor across locations. Countries with highly skilled labor forces attract German MNEs, but we find no such evidence for Swedish MNEs. This is consistent with the hypothesis that German MNEs locate production stages intensive in high-skilled labor abroad. In MNEs from either country, affiliate employment tends to substitute for employment at the parent firm. At the margin, substitutability is the strongest with respect to affiliate employment in Western Europe. A one percent larger wage gap between Germany and locations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is estimated to be associated with 900 fewer jobs in German parents and 5,000 more jobs in affiliates located in CEE. A one percent larger wage gap between Sweden and CEE is estimated to be associated with 140 fewer jobs in Swedish parents and 260 more jobs in affiliates located in CEE.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.
File URL: http://www.ifw-members.ifw-kiel.de/publications/location-choice-and-employment-decisions-a-comparison-of-german-and-swedish-multinationals/kap1243.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Kiel Institute for the World Economy in its series Kiel Working Papers with number 1243.

as in new window
Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: May 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:kie:kieliw:1243

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Hindenburgufer 66, D-24105 Kiel
Phone: +49 431 8814-1
Fax: +49 431 85853
Email:
Web page: http://www.ifw-kiel.de
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Multinational enterprises; location choice; multinomial choice; labor demand; translog cost function;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. 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 520-44, September.
  2. Blomström, Magnus & Fors, Gunnar & Lipsey, Robert E., 1997. "Foreign Direct Investment and Employment: Home Country Experience in the United States and Sweden," Working Paper Series 490, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
  3. Anderson, Richard G & Thursby, Jerry G, 1986. "Confidence Intervals for Elasticity Estimators in Translog Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(4), pages 647-56, November.
  4. Head, Keith & Ries, John, 2002. "Offshore production and skill upgrading by Japanese manufacturing firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 81-105, October.
  5. David L. Carr & James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 1998. "Estimating the Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise," NBER Working Papers 6773, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Braconier, Henrik & Ekholm, Karolina, 2000. "Swedish Multinationals and Competition from High- and Low-Wage Locations," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 448-61, August.
  7. Sascha O. Becker & Karolina Ekholm & Robert Jäckle & Marc-Andreas Mündler, 2005. "Location Choice and Employment Decisions: A Comparison of German and Swedish Multinationals," Kiel Working Papers 1243, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  8. Markusen, James R., 2002. "Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade," MPRA Paper 8380, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  9. Head, Charles Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2002. "Market Potential and the Location of Japanese Investment in the European Union," CEPR Discussion Papers 3455, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  10. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
  11. Barba Navaretti, Giorgio & Castellani, Davide, 2004. "Investments Abroad and Performance at Home: Evidence from Italian Multinationals," CEPR Discussion Papers 4284, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  12. Matthew J. Slaughter, 1995. "Multinational Corporations, Outsourcing, and American Wage Divergence," NBER Working Papers 5253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-63, July.
  14. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1973. "Transcendental Logarithmic Production Frontiers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(1), pages 28-45, February.
  15. Burgess, David F, 1974. "A Cost Minimization Approach to Import Demand Equations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(2), pages 225-34, May.
  16. Ekholm, Karolina & Forslid, Rikard, 2001. " Trade and Location with Horizontal and Vertical Multi-region Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(1), pages 101-18, March.
  17. Shatz, Howard J. & Venables, Anthony J., 2000. "The geography of international investment," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2338, The World Bank.
  18. Marin, Dalia, 2004. "A Nation of Poets and Thinkers - Less so with Eastern Enlargement? Austria and Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 4358, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  19. Konings, Jozef & Murphy, Alan, 2001. "Do Multinational Enterprises Substitute Parent Jobs for Foreign Ones? Evidence from European Firm Level Panel Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 2972, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  20. Slaughter, Matthew J., 2000. "Production transfer within multinational enterprises and American wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 449-472, April.
  21. Claudia M. Buch & Jörn Kleinert & Alexander Lipponer & Farid Toubal, 2005. "Determinants and effects of foreign direct investment: evidence from German firm-level data," Economic Policy, CEPR & CES & MSH, vol. 20(41), pages 52-110, 01.
  22. Howard Shatz, 2003. "Gravity, education, and economic development in a multinational affiliate location," Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 117-150.
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 in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kie:kieliw:1243

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dieter Stribny).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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