NBER Publications by Toshihiro Okubo

Using firm-level data on the sales and sourcing patterns of Japanese affiliates, this paper suggests that very little FDI falls neatly into the standard bins of horizontal, vertical, or export-platform FDI. Most affiliates import some intermediates and export some output, suggesting a pattern that might be called ‘networked FDI’. This suggests that the nature of FDI is influenced by ‘regional comparative advantage’ i.e. proximity of markets and suppliers. An empirical strategy is suggested for testing and classifying the nature of FDI that is based on firms’ sales and sourcing patterns rather than on standard macro-level variables (market size and income differences).

Recent trade models determine the equilibrium distribution of firm-level efficiency endogenously and show that freer trade shifts the distribution towards higher average productivity due to entry and exit of firms. These models ignore the possibility that freer trade also alters the firm-size distribution via international firm migration (offshoring); firms must, by assumption, produce in their ’birth nation.’ We show that when firms are allowed to switch locations, new productivity effects arise. Freer trade induces the most efficient small-nation firms to move to the large nation. The big country gets an ‘extra helping’ of the most efficient firms while the small nation’s firm-size distribution is truncated on both ends. This reinforces the big-nation productivity gain while reducing or ...

The standard international tax model is extended to allow for heterogeneous firms when agglomeration forces are important thus allowing us to study the relocation effects of taxes that vary according to firm size. We show that allowing for heterogeneity permits a given tax scheme to have an endogenously different effect on the location decision of small and big firms, with the biggest firms being endogenously more likely to relocate in reaction to high taxes. We show that a reform which flattens the tax-firm-size profile can raise tax revenue without inducing any relocation.

A Melitz-style model of monopolistic competition with heterogeneous firms is integrated into a simple New Economic Geography model to show that the standard assumption of identical firms is neither necessary nor innocuous. We show that re-locating to the big region is most attractive for the most productive firms; this implies interesting results for empirical work and policy analysis. A 'selection effect' means standard empirical measures overestimate agglomeration economies. A 'sorting effect' means that a regional policy induces the highest productivity firms to move to the core while the lowest productivity firms to move to the periphery. We also show that heterogeneity dampens the home market effect.