Governments go to great lengths to attract foreign multinationals because they are thought to raise the wages paid to their employees (direct effects) and to improve outcomes at local domestic firms (indirect effects). We construct the first U.S. employer-employee dataset with foreign ownership information from tax records to measure these direct and indirect effects. We find the average direct effect of a foreign multinational firm on its U.S. workers is a 7 percent increase in wages. This premium is larger for higher skilled workers and for the employees of firms from high GDP per capita countries. We find evidence that it is membership in a multinational production network--instead of foreignness--that generates the foreign firm premium. We leverage the past spatial clustering of foreign-owned firms by country of ownership to identify the indirect effects. An expansion in the foreign multinational share of commuting zone employment substantially increases the employment, value added, and--for higher earning workers--wages at local domestic-owned firms. Per job created by a foreign multinational, our estimates suggest annual gains of 16,000 USD to the aggregate wages of local incumbents, of which about two-thirds is due to indirect effects. Our estimates suggest that--via mega-deals for subsidies from local governments--foreign multinationals are able to extract a sizable fraction of the local surplus they generate.

In this volume, leading scholars in international business and business history in the United States, Europe and Japan examine the experiences of a range of firms in the United States. They survey British, Canadian, French, German, Spanish and Japanese firms, and span a range of sectors including automobiles, banking, electricals, petroleum and steel. Together, their contributions present a unique evolutionary and comparative perspective on the management and performance of foreign companies in the United States since 1945. This book is essential reading for all those with a professional or academic interest in international business, management, business history or business in the United States.

How multinationals contribute, or don't, to global prosperity Globalization and multinational corporations have long seemed partners in the enterprise of economic growth: globalization-led prosperity was the goal, and giant corporations spanning the globe would help achieve it. In recent years, however, the notion that all economies, both developed and developing, can prosper from globalization has been called into question by political figures and has fueled a populist backlash around the world against globalization and the corporations that made it possible. In an effort to elevate the sometimes contentious public debate over the conduct and operation of multinational corporations, this edited volume examines key questions about their role, both in their home countries and in the rest of the world where they do business. Is their multinational nature an essential driver of their profits? Do U.S. and European multinationals contribute to home country employment? Do multinational firms exploit foreign workers? How do multinationals influence foreign policy? How will the rise of the digital economy and digital trade in services affect multinationals? In addressing these and similar questions, the book also examines the role that multinational corporations play in the outcomes that policymakers care about most: economic growth, jobs, inequality, and tax fairness.

This is the first work to systematically demystify the impact of globalization on the United States and American society in particular, turning the tables on the more familiar idea of America as the nefarious globalizer of the developing world

This collection of essays shows the high degree of complementarity between foreign direct investment and home export, challenging the long held fear that firms investing abroad leads to a loss of employment and decline in the home country.