Multinational entry and exit, technology transfer, and international business cycles
Gautham Udupa
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2024, vol. 166, issue C
Abstract:
I develop a general equilibrium model of trade and horizontal multinational firms with firm heterogeneity and parent-to-affiliate technology transfer to evaluate how multinationals affect international business cycles. When calibrated to match micro and macro features of the United States, the impact of multinational firms crucially depends on the labor supply elasticity and the technology transfer parameter. Surprisingly, with standard (elastic) labor supply, multinationals lead to lower international correlations and higher macroeconomic volatility. A novel mechanism – procyclical exit of multinational firms – drives these results. The results are overturned only when inelastic labor supply and a high level of technology transfer are implemented together. Using novel bilateral data on the number and sales of multinational affiliates, I find evidence that the key model mechanism, i.e., entry and exit by multinationals, increases international output correlation.
Keywords: International business cycles; Multinational production; Technology transfer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F21 F23 F44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188924001064
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:166:y:2024:i:c:s0165188924001064
DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2024.104914
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control is currently edited by J. Bullard, C. Chiarella, H. Dawid, C. H. Hommes, P. Klein and C. Otrok
More articles in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().