IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/jeurec/v5y2007i4p776-795.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Export-Platform Foreign Direct Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Karolina Ekholm
  • Rikard Forslid
  • James R. Markusen

Abstract

A poorly understood empirical phenomenon is export-platform affiliate production (EP), particularly for sale in third countries rather than in the parent or host countries. We develop a three-region model, with two identical large, high-cost countries (collectively called North) and a small, low-cost country (South). The large countries each have one firm. Our theory section analyzes the conditions under which one or both of these firms uses the South to produce for (a) export back to the parent (home-country EP), (b) export to the other large country (third-country EP), or (c) export to both (global EP). A free-trade area between one of the northern countries and South can lead to the insider northern firm choosing home or global EP and the outsider firm choosing third-country EP for a range of parameter values. Our empirical section shows the relevance of this outcome. Foreign manufacturing affiliates of US multinationals inside North America concentrate on home-country EP while affiliates inside Europe concentrate on third-country EP. (JEL: F12, F23) (c) 2007 by the European Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Karolina Ekholm & Rikard Forslid & James R. Markusen, 2007. "Export-Platform Foreign Direct Investment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(4), pages 776-795, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:5:y:2007:i:4:p:776-795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1542-4774/issues
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James R. Markusen, 2004. "Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633078, December.
    2. James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2002. "Discriminating Among Alternative Theories of the Multinational Enterprise," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 694-707, November.
    3. 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 448-461, August.
    4. Bruce A. Blonigen, 2019. "In Search of Substitution Between Foreign Production and Exports," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foreign Direct Investment, chapter 9, pages 293-323, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Markusen, James R. & Rutherford, Thomas F., 1996. "Trade policy subtleties with multinational firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1605-1627, November.
    6. 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 520-544, September.
    7. David L. Carr & James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2021. "Estimating The Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 5, pages 95-110, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Ronald W. Jones, 2000. "Globalization and the Theory of Input Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026210086x, December.
    9. Ekholm, Karolina & Braconier, Henrik, 2001. "Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe: Employment Effects in the EU," CEPR Discussion Papers 3052, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Blomstrom, Magnus & Goldberg, Linda S. (ed.), 2001. "Topics in Empirical International Economics," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226060835, December.
    11. Gordon H. Hanson & Raymond J. Mataloni, Jr. & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2001. "Expansion Strategies of U.S. Multinational Firms," NBER Working Papers 8433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Magnus Blomstrom & Linda S. Goldberg, 2001. "Topics in Empirical International Economics: A Festschrift in Honor of Robert E. Lipsey," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number blom01-1, March.
    13. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Braconier, Henrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Urban, Dieter, 2002. "Vertical FDI Revisited," Working Paper Series 579, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Fung , K.C. & Korhonen, Iikka & Li, Ke & Ng, Francis, 2008. "China and central and eastern European countries : regional networks, global supply chain, or international competitors?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4689, The World Bank.
    3. Davies, Ronald B., 2005. "Fragmentation of headquarter services and FDI," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 61-79, March.
    4. Bruce A. Blonigen & Ronald B. Davies & Keith Head, 2003. "Estimating the Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 980-994, June.
    5. Bruce A. Blonigen & Ronald B. Davies & Glen R. Waddell & Helen T. Naughton, 2019. "FDI in Space: Spatial Autoregressive Relationships in Foreign Direct Investment," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foreign Direct Investment, chapter 2, pages 55-88, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Richard Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2014. "Networked FDI: Sales and Sourcing Patterns of Japanese Foreign Affiliates," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(8), pages 1051-1080, August.
    7. Tanaka, Kiyoyasu, 2011. "Vertical foreign direct investment: Evidence from Japanese and U.S. multinational enterprises," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 97-111, March.
    8. Chen, Maggie X., 2009. "Regional economic integration and geographic concentration of multinational firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 355-375, April.
    9. Tekin-Koru, Ayça, 2012. "Asymmetric effects of trade costs on entry modes: Firm level evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 277-294.
    10. James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2001. "General-Equilibrium Approaches to the Multinational Firm: A Review of Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 8334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Braconier, Henrik & Norback, Pehr-Johan & Urban, Dieter, 2005. "Multinational enterprises and wage costs: vertical FDI revisited," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 446-470, December.
    12. David L. Carr & James R. Markusen & Keith Maskus, 2004. "Competition for Multinational Investment in Developing Countries: Human Capital, Infrastructure, and Market Size," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics, pages 383-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gordon H. Hanson & Raymond J. Mataloni & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2005. "Vertical Production Networks in Multinational Firms," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(4), pages 664-678, November.
    14. Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Alessandro Turrini, 2002. "Distance and FDI when Contracts are Incomplete," Development Working Papers 165, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    15. Abdullah Kumas & Daniel L. Millimet, 2018. "Reassessing the effects of bilateral tax treaties on US FDI activity," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 42(3), pages 451-470, July.
    16. Peter Egger, 2008. "On the role of distance for outward FDI," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(2), pages 375-389, June.
    17. Raphaël Chiappini, 2012. "Un réexamen de la relation entre commerce et Investissement Direct à l'étranger (IDE) à partir d'un modèle en panel dynamique Le cas de l'Allemagne, la France et l'Italie," Working Papers hal-00744405, HAL.
    18. Peter Egger & Michael Pfaffermayr, 2004. "Distance, trade and FDI: a Hausman-Taylor SUR approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 227-246.
    19. Mariel Chladkova, Petr & Orbe Mandaluniz, Susan & Rodríguez González, Carlos, 2007. "A time varying coefficient model for panel data: Foreign Direct Investment in European OECD countries," BILTOKI 1134-8984, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Economía Aplicada III (Econometría y Estadística).
    20. Xun, Lei & Awokuse, Titus O., 2005. "The Determinants of US Outgoing FDI in the Food-Processing Sector," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19131, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:5:y:2007:i:4:p:776-795. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.