[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rae/wpaper/201002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The International Strategy of Firms: the Role of Endogenous Product Differentiation

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Blanchard
  • Carl Gaigné
  • Claude Mathieu
Abstract
We study the impact of trade liberalization on the international strategy of firms (to export and/or invest abroad as well as the number of products to be produced and exported) when product differentiation is endogenous. By considering product differentiation as a strategic variable, our analysis sheds new light on the impact of trade barriers on the decision to produce abroad and on the choice of product range, in accordance with recent empirical evidence. Indeed, we show that, even though technology exhibits the same productivity for each variety, firms drop some varieties with trade integration. In addition, our results reveal that, contrary to the standard theoretical literature, the relationship between the decision to export and trade costs is non-linear. When trade costs are relatively high, each firm export and is multi-product. Then, when trade costs take intermediate values, firms may invest abroad and the choice of producing abroad results from a prisoner's dilemma game. Finally, when trade costs are low, firms export but become single-product.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Blanchard & Carl Gaigné & Claude Mathieu, 2010. "The International Strategy of Firms: the Role of Endogenous Product Differentiation," Working Papers SMART 10-02, INRAE UMR SMART.
    • Handle: RePEc:rae:wpaper:201002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www6.rennes.inra.fr/smart/Media/Working-papers/WP10-02
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brander, James & Krugman, Paul, 1983. "A 'reciprocal dumping' model of international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3-4), pages 313-321, November.
    2. Thierry Mayer & Marc J. Melitz & Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, 2021. "Market Size, Competition, and the Product Mix of Exporters," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 5, pages 109-150, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. repec:adr:anecst:y:1997:i:47:p:09 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Neary, J. Peter, 2009. "Trade costs and foreign direct investment," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 207-218, March.
    5. repec:adr:anecst:y:1997:i:47:p:10 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:bla:reviec:v:9:y:2001:i:1:p:108-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. James R. Markusen, 2004. "Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633078, April.
    8. Bruce A. Blonigen, 2019. "In Search of Substitution Between Foreign Production and Exports," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foreign Direct Investment, chapter 9, pages 293-323, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Antoine Berthou & Lionel Fontagné, 2013. "How do Multiproduct Exporters React to a Change in Trade Costs?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(2), pages 326-353, April.
    10. Brander, James A & Eaton, Jonathan, 1984. "Product Line Rivalry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 323-334, June.
    11. Karolina Ekholm,, "undated". "Factor Endowments and the Pattern of Affiliate Production by Multinational Enterprises," Discussion Papers 97/19, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    12. Carsten Eckel & J. Peter Neary, 2010. "Multi-Product Firms and Flexible Manufacturing in the Global Economy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(1), pages 188-217.
    13. K Ojah & L Monplaisir, 2003. "Investors' valuation of global product design and development," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 34(5), pages 457-472, September.
    14. James R. Markusen, 1995. "The Boundaries of Multinational Enterprises and the Theory of International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 169-189, Spring.
    15. Gianni De Fraja & George Norman, 2004. "Product Differentiation and the Location of International Production," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 151-170, March.
    16. Baldwin, Richard E. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P., 2001. "Multiproduct multinationals and reciprocal FDI dumping," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 429-448, August.
    17. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Multiproduct Firms and Trade Liberalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1271-1318.
    18. Manez, J.A. & Waterson, M., 2001. "Multiproduct Firms and Product Differentiation: a Survey," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 594, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    19. Klemperer, Paul, 1992. "Equilibrium Product Lines: Competing Head-to-Head May Be Less Competitive," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 740-755, September.
    20. Magnus Blomstrom & Robert E. Lipsey & Ksenia Kulchycky, 1988. "U.S. and Swedish Direct Investment and Exports," NBER Chapters, in: Trade Policy Issues and Empirical Analysis, pages 257-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Deborah L. Swenson, 2004. "Foreign Investment and the Mediation of Trade Flows," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(4), pages 609-629, September.
    22. Keith Head & John Ries, 2001. "Overseas Investment and Firm Exports," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 108-122, February.
    23. Brainard, S Lael, 1997. "An Empirical Assessment of the Proximity-Concentration Trade-off between Multinational Sales and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 520-544, September.
    24. Iacovone, Leonardo & Javorcik, Beata S., 2008. "Multi-product exporters : diversification and micro-level dynamics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4723, The World Bank.
    25. Alan Rugman, 1987. "Multinationals and trade in services: A transaction cost approach," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 123(4), pages 651-667, December.
    26. Martinez-Giralt, Xavier & Neven, Damien J, 1988. "Can Price Competition Dominate Market Segmentation?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 431-442, June.
    27. Ignatius J. Horstmann & James R. Markusen, 2021. "Endogenous market structures in international trade (natura facit saltum)," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 2, pages 25-45, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    28. Motta, Massimo, 1994. "International trade and investments in a vertically differentiated industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 179-196, June.
    29. Helpman, Elhanan, 1984. "A Simple Theory of International Trade with Multinational Corporations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(3), pages 451-471, June.
    30. Claude Mathieu, 1997. "International Enterprises and Endogenous Market Structure," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 47, pages 171-195.
    31. Robert E. Baldwin, 1988. "Trade Policy Issues and Empirical Analysis," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bald88-2.
    32. Stephen Redding, 2009. "In brief: Heterogeneous firms in international trade," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 292, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    33. Timothy Dunne & J. Bradford Jensen & Mark J. Roberts, 2009. "Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number dunn05-1.
    34. Ignatius J. Horstmann & James R. Markusen, 1990. "Endogenous Market Structures in International Trade," NBER Working Papers 3283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blanchard, Pierre & Gaigné, Carl & Mathieu, Claude, 2012. "Trade costs and international strategy of firms: The role of endogenous product differentiation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1023-1036.
    2. Pierre Blanchard & Carl Gaigné & Claude Mathieu, 2012. "Trade Costs and Endogenous Product Differentiation for International Firms," Erudite Working Paper 2012-07, Erudite.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blanchard, Pierre & Gaigné, Carl & Mathieu, Claude, 2012. "Trade costs and international strategy of firms: The role of endogenous product differentiation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1023-1036.
    2. Pierre Blanchard & Carl Gaigné & Claude Mathieu, 2012. "Trade Costs and Endogenous Product Differentiation for International Firms," Erudite Working Paper 2012-07, Erudite.
    3. Daniel Baumgarten & Michael Irlacher & Karin Mayr‐Dorn, 2022. "Internationalization strategies of multi‐product firms: The role of technology," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 1929-1965, November.
    4. James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2001. "General-Equilibrium Approaches to the Multinational Firm: A Review of Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 8334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Amiti, Mary & Wakelin, Katharine, 2003. "Investment liberalization and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 101-126, October.
    6. Baldwin, Richard E. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P., 2001. "Multiproduct multinationals and reciprocal FDI dumping," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 429-448, August.
    7. Eckel, Carsten & Iacovone, Leonardo & Javorcik, Beata & Neary, J. Peter, 2015. "Multi-product firms at home and away: Cost- versus quality-based competence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 216-232.
    8. Elvira Sapienza, 2009. "The interaction between Export and FDI: Central-Eastern Europe and EU15," Quaderni DSEMS 13-2009, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Universita' di Foggia.
    9. Nishitateno, Shuhei, 2013. "Global production sharing and the FDI–trade nexus: New evidence from the Japanese automobile industry," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 64-80.
    10. Kalina Manova & Zhiwei Zhang, 2008. "China's exporters and importers: firms, products, and trade partners," Working Paper Series 2008-28, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    11. De Santis, Roberto A. & Stahler, Frank, 2004. "Endogenous market structures and the gains from foreign direct investment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 545-565, December.
    12. Naoto Jinji & Xingyuan Zhang & Shoji Haruna, 2022. "Deep Integration, Global Firms, and Technology Spillovers," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-981-16-5210-3, June.
    13. Parenti, Mathieu, 2018. "Large and small firms in a global market: David vs. Goliath," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 103-118.
    14. Mitze, Timo & Alecke, Björn & Untiedt, Gerhard, 2008. "Trade, FDI and Cross-Variable Linkages: A German (Macro-)Regional Perspective," MPRA Paper 12245, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Henri Bezuidenhout & Wim Naudé, 2008. "Foreign Direct Investment and Trade in the Southern African Development Community," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-88, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Lu, Yi & Tao, Zhigang & Zhang, Yan, 2018. "How do exporters adjust export product scope and product mix to react to antidumping?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 20-41.
    17. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.
    18. Devereux, Michael P. & Griffith, Rachel, 1998. "Taxes and the location of production: evidence from a panel of US multinationals," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 335-367, June.
    19. M. T. Alguacil & V. Orts, 2003. "Inward Foreign Direct Investment and Imports in Spain," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 19-38.
    20. Robert Elliott & Supreeya Virakul, 2010. "Multi-product firms and exporting: a developing country perspective," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 146(4), pages 635-656, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign direct investment; exports; multi-product competition; endogenous differentiation product; trade integration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rae:wpaper:201002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Chauvel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inrarfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.