Multinational sales have grown at high rates over the last two decades, outpacing the remarkable expansion of trade in manufactures. Consequently, the trade literature has sought to incorporate the mode of foreign market access into the “new” trade theory. This literature recognizes that  rms can serve foreign buyers through a variety of channels: they can export their products to foreign customers, serve them through foreign subsidiaries, or license foreign  rms to produce their products. Our work focuses on the  rm’s choice between exports and “horizontal” foreign direct investment (FDI). Horizontal FDI refers to an investment in a foreign production facility that is designed to serve customers in the foreign market. Firms invest abroad when the gains from avoiding trade costs outweigh the costs of maintaining capacity in multiple markets. This is known as the proximity-concentration tradeoff. We introduce heterogeneous  rms into a simple multicountry, multisector model, in which  rms face a proximity-concentration trade-off. Every  rm decides whether to serve a foreign market, and whether to do so through exports or local subsidiary sales. These modes of market access have different relative costs: exporting involves lower  xed costs while FDI involves lower variable costs. Our model highlights the important role of within-sector  rm productivity differences in explaining the structure of international trade and investment. First, only the most productive  rms engage in foreign activities. This result mirrors other  ndings on  rm heterogeneity and trade; in particular, the results reported in Melitz (2003). Second, of those  rms that serve foreign markets, only the most productive engage in FDI. Third, FDI sales relative to exports are larger in sectors with more  rm heterogeneity. Using U.S. exports and af liate sales data that cover 52 manufacturing sectors and 38 countries, we show that cross-sectoral differences in  rm heterogeneity predict the composition of trade and investment in the manner suggested by our model. We construct several measures of  rm heterogeneity, using different data sources, and show that our results are robust across all these measures. In addition, we con rm the predictions of the proximityconcentration trade-off. That is,  rms tend to substitute FDI sales for exports when transport * Helpman: Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, Tel Aviv University, and CIAR (e-mail: ehelpman@harvard.edu); Melitz: Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Centre for Economic Policy Research (e-mail: mmelitz@ harvard.edu); Yeaple: Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, and National Bureau of Economic Research (e-mail: snyeapl2@ssc.upenn.edu). The statistical analysis of  rmlevel data on U.S. Multinational Corporations reported in this study was conducted at the International Investment Division, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, under an arrangement that maintained legal con dentiality requirements. Views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily re ect those of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Elhanan Helpman thanks the NSF for  nancial support. We also thank Daron Acemoglu, Roberto Rigobon, Yona Rubinstein, and Dani Tsiddon for comments on an earlier draft, and Man-Keung Tang for excellent research assistance. 1 See Wilfred J. Ethier (1986), Ignatius Horstmann and James R. Markusen (1987), and Ethier and Markusen (1996) for models that incorporate the licensing alternative. We therefore exclude “vertical” motives for FDI that involve fragmentation of production across countries. See Helpman (1984, 1985), Markusen (2002, Ch. 9), and Gordon H. Hanson et al. (2002) for treatments of this form of FDI. 3 See, for example, Horstmann and Markusen (1992), S. Lael Brainard (1993), and Markusen and Anthony J. Venables (2000). 4 See also Andrew B. Bernard et al. (2003) for an alternative theoretical model and Yeaple (2003a) for a model based on worker-skill heterogeneity. James R. Tybout (2003) surveys the recent micro-level evidence on trade that has motivated these theoretical models. 5 This result is loosely connected to the documented empirical pattern that foreign-owned af liates are more productive than domestically owned producers. See Mark E. Doms and J. Bradford Jensen (1998) for the United States and Sourafel Girma et al. (2002) for the United Kingdom.

/pdf/export-versus-fdi-with-heterogeneous-firms-1uflan7r0h.pdf

Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms

Many governments offer significant inducements to attract inward investment, motivated by the expectation of spillover benefits. This paper begins by reviewing possible sources of spillovers. It then provides a comprehensive evaluation of the empirical evidence on productivity, wages and exports spillovers in developing, developed and transitional economies. Although theory can identify a range of possible spillover channels, robust empirical support for positive spillovers is hard to find. The reasons for this are explored and the paper concludes with a review of policy aspects.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID475044_code355382.pdf?abstractid=475044&mirid=3

Much Ado About Nothing? Do Domestic Firms Really Benefit from Foreign Investment?

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This paper surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 45 microeconometric studies with data from 33 countries that were published between 1995 and 2004. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non-exporters, and the more productive firms self-select into export markets, while exporting does not necessarily improve productivity.

/pdf/exports-and-productivity-a-survey-of-the-evidence-from-firm-1to9usucex.pdf

Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm Level Data

Governments the world over offer significant inducements to attract investment, motivated by the expectation of spillover benefits to augment the primary benefits of a boost to national income from new investment. There are several possible sources of induced spillovers from foreign direct investment. This article evaluates the empirical evidence on productivity, wage, and export spillovers in developing, developed, and transition economies. Although theory can identify a range of possible spillover channels, robust empirical support for positive spillovers is at best mixed. The article explores the reasons and concludes with a review of policy aspects.

/pdf/much-ado-about-nothing-do-domestic-firms-really-benefit-from-77tms2nlmt.pdf

Much ado about nothing? do domestic firms really benefit from foreign direct investment?

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This papers surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 45 microeconometric studies with data from 33 countries that were published between 1995 and 2004. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non-exporters, and the more productive firms self-select into export markets, while exporting does not necessarily improve productivity.

/pdf/exports-and-productivity-a-survey-of-the-evidence-from-firm-15f3uvpfgz.pdf

Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm-level Data

Exporting involves sunk costs, so some firms export whilst others do not. This proposition derives from a number of models of firm behavior and has been exposed to microeconometric analysis. Evidence from the latter suggests that exporting firms are generally more productive than nonexporters. They self-select, in that they are more productive before they enter export markets, but the evidence suggests that entry does not make them any more productive. This paper investigates exporting and firm performance for a large panel of UK manufacturing firms, applying matching techniques. The authors find that exporters are more productive and they do self-select. In contrast to other evidence, however, exporting further increases firm productivity.

Avid Greenaway

Papers

Does Exporting Increase Productivity? A Microeconometric Analysis of Matched Firms