Footloose Multinationals in Belgium?

Why are Multinationals ‘Footloose’?

Conclusions The ‘footloose’ effect of MNE ownership is attributable to the nature of the plants they close. Multinationals are more likely to close plants that are weakest relative to the firm. There is a high degree of similarity between the plants closed by multiplant firms regardless of whether they are MNE or not. However, MNEs offshore high wage plants while domestic multiplant firms outso...

Globalisation , Productivity and Technology Research Paper 2009 / 27 Why are Multinationals “ Footloose ” ?

This paper investigates why multinational ownership is found to increase the probability that a plant will exit. It does so by using Japanese plant data linked to firm data. Plants belonging to a multinational are 9 percentage points more likely to exit when plant, firm and industry characteristics are conditioned on. We find that the “footloose” effect is attributable to multinationals closing...

The Taxation of Multinationals: Firm Level Evidence for Belgium

This paper provides empirical evidence of a more favorable tax treatment for foreign multinationals compared to similar domestic firms in a small open economy. Using treatment effects to control for self-selection of foreign firms into low tax firms, we find that foreign multinationals have substantially lower effective tax rates compared to domestic firms. In our estimations we also control fo...

Bilateral Migration and Multinationals

This paper starts by observing two novel facts. First, bilateral migration flows are pervasive across OECD countries, both for high-skilled and low-skilled workers. This fact goes against the common belief that migration merely reallocates cheap labor from poor to rich countries. Second, multinational corporations tend to hire a large number of migrant workers. In this paper I develop a general...

"Towards « Participative » Multinationals"