Intrafirm Trade and Vertical Fragmentation in U.S. Multinational Corporations
Using firm-level data, we document two new facts regarding intrafirm trade and the activities of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational corporations. First, intrafirm trade is concentrated among a small number of large affiliates within large multinational corporations; the median affiliate ships nothing to the rest of the corporation. Second, we find that the input-output coefficient linking the parent’s and affiliate’s industries of operation—a characteristic commonly associated with production fragmentation— is not related to a corresponding intrafirm flow of goods.
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Copy CitationNatalia Ramondo, Veronica Rappoport, and Kim J. Ruhl, "Intrafirm Trade and Vertical Fragmentation in U.S. Multinational Corporations," NBER Working Paper 21472 (2015), https://doi.org/10.3386/w21472.
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Published Versions
Ramondo, Natalia & Rappoport, Veronica & Ruhl, Kim J., 2016. "Intrafirm trade and vertical fragmentation in U.S. multinational corporations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 51-59. citation courtesy of 
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