Empirical evidence indicates a close association between multinational firms and knowledge capital, a public good within the firm. We model a firm which wishes to exploit its knowledge capital abroad, but whose workers learn all the knowledge necessary for production and can defect and produce the good themselves. The home firm must then choose between costly exporting and the possible dissipation of its knowledge capital by producing abroad. The paper examines the choice between exporting, licensing, and acquiring a subsidiary in this environment. We analyze the cost and technology parameters that support the alternative modes of serving the foreign market, and we describe the international equilibrium that jointly determines the pattern of specialization and the market mode.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
3825.
Length: Date of creation: Aug 1991 Date of revision: Publication status: published as Journal of International Economics, vol.41, 1996, pp. 1-28. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3825
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