The global agglomeration of multinational firms
By: Laura Alfaro, Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
Contributors: Chen, Maggie Xiaoyang; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 10-043; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 10-043
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 41
Work titles: Global networks of multinational firms
Description: The explosion of multinational activities in recent decades is rapidly transforming the global landscape of industrial production. But are the emerging clusters of multinational production the rule or the exception? What drives the offshore agglomeration of multinational firms? Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for plants in over 100 countries, we construct a spatially continuous index of agglomeration and investigate the patterns and determinants underlying the global economic geography of multinational firms. Our analysis shows that the emerging offshore clusters of multinationals are not a simple reflection of domestic industrial clusters. Location fundamentals including market access and comparative advantage and under-emphasized agglomeration economies including capital-good market externality and technology diffusion play a particularly important role in multinationals' offshore agglomeration.
Notes: "Revised October 2012"--Publisher's Web site.

Revised edition of The global networks of multinational firms, originally published in [2009].

Includes bibliographical references (pages 25-28).