ECON 617 Strategies of Multinational Firms Spring 2022
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ECON 617 Strategies of Multinational Firms Spring 2022
About the Class
Mondays and Wednesdays 4:10-5:25pm RICH 106 and by Zoom for students with University Excused Absences. In our course eCampus page, click Zoom Meetings from the menu on the left, locate the meeting and click Join. To access cloud recordings, click Zoom Meetings from the same menu, click the Cloud Recordings tab, click the name of the recording, and click Play. The first class is Wednesday, January 19 and the last class is Wednesday, April 27. See rules for University Excused Absences at http://student-rules.tamu.edu/rule07.
Dr. Amy Glass
Virtual Office Hours
Call (979) 845-8507 or e-mail[email protected].
Description of Course
This course covers decision making in multinational firms, taking a firm-level approach to the study of international investment. The class is structured around papers from the frontier of international trade research. We will first examine trends in multinational activity and explore the reasons behind decisions to invest abroad including understanding different types of foreign direct investment. Next we will study the impact of multinational firms and how government policies affect foreign direct investment (FDI), including a brief overview of transfer pricing and the arm’s length principle.
Learning Objectives
This course will enable students to understand better the role and actions of multinational firms in the global economy through demonstrated ability to:
• Identify trends in multinational activity.
• Explain why multinational firms exist.
• Analyze how multinational firms make price, quantity, innovation, imitation, and other decisions.
• Compare and contrast the choices of successful multinational firms to failures.
• Describe how the activities of multinational firms affect other firms, workers, consumers, and countries.
• Characterize how government policies affect the strategies chosen by MNCs.
Prerequisites: This course requires a solid understanding of microeconomic theory at the master’s level.
Required Text: This course does not use a text; see readings list below (available on eCampus).
Schedule
Course Introduction (January 19)
Trends in Multinational Activity (January 24 & 26)
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (2011), Operations of U.S. Multinational Companies in the United States and Abroad Preliminary Results from the 2009 Benchmark Survey, pages 29-30.
• UNCTAD (2011), World Investment Report 2011: Non-Equity Modes of International Production and Development, pages 1-11, 16. Also data from more recent WIRs.
• Wynne, Mark A. & Erasmus K. Kersting (2008), “The Globalization of U.S. Business Investment,” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas StaffPapers No 3, pages 1-13, 15-17, 25-26.
Why Multinational Firms Exist: Horizontal FDI and the Proximity-
• Helpman, Elhanan, Marc J. Melitz, & Stephen R. Yeaple (2004), “Export versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms,” American Economic Review 94(1): 300–316.
• Markusen, James R. & Anthony J. Venables (2000), “The Theory of Endowment,
Intra-industry and Multi-national Trade,” Journal of International Economics 52(2): 209-234.
• Markusen, James R. (1984), “Multinationals, Multi-Plant Economies, and the Gains from Trade,” Journal of International Economics 16(3-4): 205-226.
• Markusen, James R. (1995), “The Boundaries of Multinational Enterprises and the Theory of International Trade,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 9(2): 169- 189.
• Yeaple, Stephen R. (2009), “Firm Heterogeneity and the Structure of U.S. Multinational Activity,” Journal of International Economics 78(2): 206-215.
Vertical FDI (February 9, 14 & 16)
• Carr, David L., James R. Markusen, & Keith E. Maskus (2001), “Estimating the Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise,” American Economic Review 91(3): 693-708.
• Helpman, Elhanan (1984), “A Simple Theory of International Trade with Multinational Corporations,” Journal of Political Economy 92(3): 451-471.
• Yeaple, Stephen (2003), “The Role of Skill Endowments in the Structure of U.S. Outward FDI,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 85(3): 726-734.
• Yeaple, Stephen (2003), “The Complex Integration Strategies of Multinationals and Cross Country Dependencies in the Structure of FDI,” Journal of International Economics 60(2): 293-314.
• Yi, Kei-Mu (2003), “Can Vertical Specialization Explain the Growth of World Trade?” Journal of Political Economy 111(1): 52-102.
• Antras, Pol (2003), “Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(4): 1375– 1418.
• Antras, Pol & Elhanan Helpman (2004), “Global Sourcing,” Journal of Political Economy 112(3): 552–580.
• Antras, Pol (2005), “Incomplete Contracts and the Product Cycle,” American Economic Review 95(4): 1054-1073.
• Grossman, Gene M. & Elhanan Helpman (2002), “Integration vs. Outsourcing in Industry Equilibrium,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(1): 85-120.
• Grossman, Gene M. & Elhanan Helpman (2005), “Outsourcing in a Global Economy,” Review ofEconomic Studies 72(1): 135-159.
• Helpman, Elhanan (2006), “Trade, FDI and the Organization of Firms,” Journal of Economic Literature 44(3): 589–630.
Impact of Multinationals and Foreign Direct Investment Policy (March
• Chor, Davin (2009), “Subsidies for FDI: Implications from a Model with Heterogeneous Firms,” Journal of International Economics 78(1): 113-125.
• Desai, Mihir, Fritz Foley & James Hines (2004). “Foreign Direct Investment in a World of Multiple Taxes,” Journal of Public Economics 88(12): 2727-2744.
• Glass, Amy J. & K. Saggi (1999), “FDI Policies under Shared Factor Markets,” Journal of International Economics 49(2): 309-332.
• Glass, Amy J. & K. Saggi (2002), “Multinational Firms and Technology Transfer,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 104(4): 495-513.
• Glass, Amy J. (2012), “Intellectual Property Policy and International Technology” Diffusion” Mimeo Texas A&M.
• Mattoo, Aaditya, Marcelo Olarreaga & Kamal Saggi (2004), “Mode of Foreign Entry, Technology Transfer, and FDI Policy,” Journal of Development Economics 75(1): 95-111.
• OECD (2010). Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations
• UNCTAD (1999). Transfer Pricing
• UNCTAD (2004). World Investment Report 2004: The Shift Towards Services
• Eden, Lorraine, Luis Juárez Valdez & Dan Li (2005), “Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick: Transfer Pricing Penalties and the Market Valuation of Japanese Multinationals in the United States,” Journal of International Business Studies 36: 398-414.
• Eden, Lorraine (2005), “Went for Cost, Priced at Cost? An Economic Approach to the Transfer Pricing of Offshored Business Services,” Transnational Corporations 14(2): 1-53.
How to Find Information about Multinational Firms (March 23)
Student Presentations (March 28 – April 13)
Course Grading
Students will write a series of summaries of the previous segment’s lectures – and will review two of these summaries each round – worth half of the course grade. Students will also write a detailed case study of a specific foreign direct investment project and present their work briefly in class – and review presentations and case study drafts – worth the remaining half. A curve will be implemented if needed.
Grading Scale 90 - 100 = A, 80 - 89 = B, 70 - 79 = C, 60 - 69 = D, <59 = F
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2022-01-17