Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Publication
    Reaching Up and Reaching Out: The Impact of Competition on Firms’ Productivity and Export Decisions
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2017-09) ; ;
    This paper investigates the effect of competition in both the domestic and foreign markets on firm productivity and export decisions using firm level data from 139 countries. Using a Sample Selection Endogenous Treatment (SSET) Poisson model that tackles both the issue of endogenous sample selection and endogenous treatment at the same time, we document robust evidence that strong competition in the domestic market propels firms to be more productive, and rising domestic competition increases firms’ propensity to export. However, firms’ export intensity, i.e. how much they export, is not directly influenced by competition in the domestic market. Moreover, lower competition in the foreign market increases the propensity of domestic firms to export, enlarging the set of exporting firms to firms with relatively smaller export amount.
      370
  • Publication
    Competition in Taxes and IPR
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2020-06) ; ; ;
    We examine competition for foreign direct investment when governments compete in tax incentives along with intellectual property rights (IRPs) protection. Higher IPRs result in a lower probability of the multinational enterprise (MNE) being imitated and thus higher expected profits and tax revenues, all else equal. We show that, from the perspective of competing hosts, equilibrium IPRs are too high while taxes are too low. Coordination between jurisdictions can therefore lower the multinational's expected payoff, providing a rationale for why during recent trade negotiations FDI home countries complain about low IPRs in some locations while not pushing for them to be centrally determined.
      186
  • Publication
    Local linkages: The interdependence of foreign and domestic firms
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2017-06) ; ;
    This paper investigates the interdependence of foreign and domestic firms’ local linkage decisions and the extent to which they respond differently to variations in export intensity and productivity originating from each of the two groups of firms. Our empirical analysis, based on Irish data, uncovers an interesting asymmetric pattern in the local linkage dynamics of foreign and domestic firms. We find that local linkages of domestic firms tend to evolve independently of their foreign counterpart, and that they react almost instantaneously to exogenous events such as increases in export intensity or productivity. Local linkages of foreign firms, by contrast, react gradually to exogenous events and the impact works through the reverberating dynamics of the lagged linkages of both foreign and domestic firms. The Irish experience is instructive to policymakers in emerging markets who are naturally interested in the best way to maximize the value of FDI, in terms of benefits the latter brings about for sustainable economic development.
      375
  • Publication
    Transport Infrastructure Investments and Competition for FDI
    (University College Dublin. School of Economics, 2017-09) ; ;
    This paper studies how transport infrastructure investments affect a bidding war for a firm between two asymmetric countries within a region in a context of imperfect competition, where transport infrastructure investments play the role of a global public good, leading to a reduction in the unit trade cost between the two countries. A number of interesting results are derived from the model. In particular, transport infrastructure investments can intensify fiscal competition between the two countries. Surprisingly, this conventional wisdom seems to be confirmed by this paper for the first time. Welfare implications of the model are also examined.
      413