Bruce A. Blonigen

Estimating The Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise: Comment

What we term the firm includes three principal assumptions. First, services of knowledge-based and knowledge-generating activities, such as R&D, can be geographically separated from production and supplied to production facilities at low cost. Second, these knowledge-intensive activities are skilled-labor intensive relative to production. These characteristics give rise to vertical multinationals, which fragment production and locate activities according to factor prices and market size. Third, knowledge-based services have a (partial) joint-input characteristic that they can be supplied to additional production facilities at low cost. This characteristic gives rise to horizontal multinationals, which produce the same goods or services in multiple locations. In this paper, we note how this model predicts relationships between affiliate sales and country characteristics. We then subject these predictions to empirical tests.

FDI in space: Spatial autoregressive relationships in foreign direct investment

Abstract There are a number of theoretical reasons why foreign direct investment (FDI) into a host country may depend on the FDI in proximate countries. Such spatial interdependence has been largely ignored by the empirical FDI literature, with only a couple recent papers accounting for such issues in their estimation. This paper conducts a general examination of spatial interactions in empirical FDI models using data on US outbound FDI activity. We find that estimated relationships of traditional determinants of FDI are surprisingly robust to inclusion of terms to capture spatial interdependence, even though such interdependence is estimated to be significant. However, we find that both the traditional determinants of FDI and the estimated spatial interdependence are quite sensitive to the sample of countries one examines.

Welfare costs of the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws

Abstract The antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) laws in the United States have become the most pervasive form of import relief sought by domestic producers. This paper estimates the collective economic effect of the hundreds of active U.S. AD/CVD orders. Using a computable general equilibrium model, we estimate that the collective net economic welfare cost in 1993 of these orders to be

FDI in Space: Spatial Autoregressive Relationships in Foreign Direct Investment

4 billion. This welfare estimate is sensitive to various modeling assumptions, which are explored in the paper. With the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements, the AD/CVD laws remain one of the costliest programs restraining U.S. trade.

Foreign-Affiliate Activity and U.S. Skill Upgrading

Theoretical models of foreign direct investment (FDI) have only recently begun to model the role of third countries, and the empirical FDI literature has almost exclusively examined bilateral FDI data without recognizing the potential interdependence between FDI decisions to alternative host countries. This paper uses spatial econometric techniques to examine the spatial correlation between FDI to alternative (neighboring) regions. The sign of such correlations can provide evidence for or against alternative theories for FDI motivations. Using data on OECD countries from 1980-2000, we find evidence consistent with export platform FDI in Europe.

Port Efficiency and Trade Flows

There has been little analysis of the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) on U.S. wage inequality, even though the presence of foreign-owned affiliates in the United States has arguably grown more rapidly in significance for the U.S. economy than trade flows. Using U.S. manufacturing data from 1977 to 1994, we find that inward FDI has not contributed to U.S. within-industry skill upgrading. In fact, the 1980s wave of Japanese greenfield investments was significantly correlated with lower, not higher, relative demand for skilled labor. This casts doubt upon one possible channel of skill-biased technological change that was previously unexplored.

Endogenous protection, foreign direct investment and protection-building trade

Growing international trade and increasing congestion focus attention on trade facilitation. Ocean ports are a central and necessary component in facilitating trade. Yet, there is only limited comprehensive information available on the efficiency of ports or evidence of the effect of port efficiency on trade. We develop and apply a straightforward approach to estimate port efficiency. The approach uses detailed data on US imports and associated import costs, yielding estimates across ports, products, and time. These measures are incorporated into a gravity trade model where we estimate that improved port efficiency significantly increases trade volumes.

Evolving Discretionary Practices of U.S. Antidumping Activity

Abstract We introduce the possibility of foreign direct investment (FDI) in a strategic, oligopolistic setting with endogenous protection and find that a number of unique subgame-perfect equilibria may arise, including a new result we call “protection-building trade.” This phenomenon occurs in our model when foreign firms locating production in the home country try to increase protectionist pressures in the home country (through increased exports) to provide larger barriers against other foreign competitors in future periods. We discuss how the foreign firm behavior surrounding significant U.S. protectionist actions, including the VERs on Japanese automobiles, may be consistent with protection-building trade behavior.

Tariff-jumping antidumping duties

Using data on U.S. dumping margin calculations by the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC), we first document the rapid rise in U.S. dumping margins from around 15% in the early 1980s to over 60% by 2000. Second, statistical analysis finds that USDOC discretionary practices have played the major role in rising U.S. dumping margins over this period. Importantly, the evolving effect of discretionary practices is due not only to increasing use of these practices over time, but to apparent changes in implementation of these practices that mean a higher increase in the dumping margin whenever they are applied.

Do Bilateral Tax Treaties Promote Foreign Direct Investment

Using a newly constructed database, this paper examines the tariff-jumping response of all firm and product combinations subject to U.S. AD investigations from 1980-1990. The results strongly support the hypothesis that tariff-jumping is only a realistic option for multinational firms from industrialized countries. Because many firms subject to U.S. AD investigations and eventual duties do not have these characteristics, tariff-jumping of U.S. AD protection is relatively modest. It may also explain why developing countries have been more concerned about addressing AD protection in the WTO than industrialized countries. While the raw numbers show a high tariff-response rate for Japanese firms, this is due almost solely to the fact that many of these firms have substantial multinational experience, not due to any Japanese-specific response per se. I also find little evidence that certain U.S. Department of Commerce procedures that use information from the domestic petitioners (rather than the foreign firms) to calculate dumping margins has any impact on tariff-jumping responses.