Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Changing Patterns of International Investment In and By the United States

Contents:

Author Info

  • Robert E. Lipsey

Abstract

The international investment account of the United States has gone through several cycles. Before World War I, the U.S. was a borrower most of the time and an international debtor. Between the two World Wars, it was first a lender and then a refuge for foreign capital. After World War 11, the U.S. became the world's major lender and creditor and in the last few years it has become the world's largest borrower, and, according to the official accounts, even a net debtor. U.S. direct investment abroad began while the U.S. was still an overall borrower and debtor. The technological leaders among U.S. manufacturing firms pioneered in this technique for exploiting their particular knowledge and skills by producing in other countries. The peak in the importance of foreign assets relative to the domestic assets of U.S. companies was probably reached during the early 1970s. While the flow of direct investment from the U.S. has slowed, there has recently been a large inflow of foreign direct investment into the U.S.. That inflow has roughly tripled the share of foreign-owned companies in the U.S. since 1950. While foreign-owned firms accounted for only about 3% per cent of total U.S. employment after all the recent growth in foreign direct investment in the U.S., the shares in manufacturing and wholesale trade were considerably higher. Foreign firms accounted for almost 40 per cent of chemical industry employment, but for less than 10 per cent in all the other industries. The foreign shares in service industries, aside from wholesale trade, increased, but remained below 3 per cent.

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.nber.org/papers/w2240.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 2240.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 1988
Date of revision:
Publication status: published as Robert E. Lipsey, Mario Schimberni, Robert V. Lindsay. "Changing Patterns of International Investment in and by the United States," in Martin Feldstein, editor, "The United States in the World Economy" University of Chicago Press (1988)
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2240

Note: ITI IFM
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

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. Robert E. Lipsey & Irving B. Kravis, 1985. "The Competitive Position of U.S. Manufacturing Firms," NBER Working Papers 1557, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Baldwin, Robert E, 1979. "Determinants of Trade and Foreign Investment: Further Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(1), pages 40-48, February.
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:
  1. Jose Campa & Linda S. Goldberg, 1993. "Investment in Manufacturing, Exchange-Rates and External Exposure," NBER Working Papers 4378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Joosung Jun, 1989. "What is the Marginal Source of Funds for Foreign Investment?," NBER Working Papers 3064, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Robert E. Lipsey, 1995. "Outward Direct Investment and the U.S. Economy," NBER Working Papers 4691, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Irving B. Kravis & Robert E. Lipsey, 1992. "Technological Characteristics of Industries and the Competitiveness of the U.S. and its Multinational Firms," NBER Working Papers 2933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Michael B. Devereux & Charles Engel, 1999. "The Optimal Choice of Exchange-Rate Regime: Price-Setting Rules and Internationalized Production," NBER Working Papers 6992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Joosung Jun, 1989. "U.S. Tax Policy and Direct Investment Abroad," NBER Working Papers 3049, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Joosung Jun, 1990. "U.S. Tax Policy and Direct Investment Abroad," NBER Chapters, in: Taxation in the Global Economy, pages 55-78 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2001. "Multinational Firms: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: Topics in Empirical International Economics: A Festschrift in Honor of Robert E. Lipsey, pages 71-98 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Campbell DC & Mcelrath RG, 1990. "Employment effects of multinational enterprises in the United States and of American multinationals abroad," ILO Working Papers 289571, International Labour Organization.
  10. Linda S. Goldberg, 1990. "Nominal Exchange Rate Patterns: Correlationswith Entry, Exit, and Invesment in U.S. Industry," NBER Working Papers 3249, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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:nbr:nberwo:2240

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

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.