Multinational Firms and Global Innovation”
Abstra ct:
This paper provides an integrated an alysis of multinational companies' global production and innovation. We est ablish novel stylized facts using rich data on the network of production af filiates and patent activity of German multinationals. We rationalize these facts with a heterogeneous-firm model, in which companies jointly determin e the location and scale of production, basic innovation and applied innova tion, under asymmetric complementarities across these three activities. Emp irical evidence consistent with the model indicates that bigger MNCs innova te more intensively in terms of patent frequency and quality, and offshore innovation to more countries, including both countries with and without pro duction affiliates. Moreover, MNCs' innovation portfolio follows countries' comparative advantage across technology classes, with applied innovation m ore likely to be co-located with production than basic innovation.
DTSTAMP:20260423T055004Z DTSTART:20241017T163000Z DTEND:20241017T180000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR