PRESERVATION OF TRADE SECRETS AND MULTINATIONAL WAGE PREMIA

Dan Bernhardt () and Vladimir Dvoracek

Economic Inquiry, 2009, vol. 47, issue 4, pages 726-738

Abstract: "This paper considers the strategic behavior of a multinational firm with superior technology operating in a developing country. Domestic firms do not have access to the superior technology other than by hiring away multinational corporation (MNC) workers. The MNC can retain its workers by paying a wage premia, and we determine how the industry structure and the nature of strategic competition between firms affects the MNC's incentive to pay this premia and thus preserve its informational advantage. We characterize conditions under which MNCs inefficiently divide job tasks in order to raise the cost to domestic firms of acquiring the MNC's trade secrets." ("JEL" F23, J31, O33) Copyright (c) 2008 Western Economic Association International.

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2008.00142.x link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:47:y:2009:i:4:p:726-738

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0095-2583

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is edited by Preston McAfee

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().