Decisions of multinational firms : plant location and sourcing
department or school: Business, Sauder School of
department or school: Management Information Systems, Division of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Yang, Chenying
issued: 2021-08-26T15:27:36Z
issued: 2021
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The spatial distribution of economic activities is shaped by the way in which firms operate. I study firms' intra- and inter-national decisions and how their responses to policies affect the social welfare. First, I develop a quantitative model of multi-plant oligopolists where firms decide on plant locations, export and pricing, taking into account competition and cannibalization. I advance the existing trade literature on multinational firms by allowing for interdependent entry, oligopolistic rivalry and variable markups. Despite having a combinatorial discrete choice problem, I provide a toolkit to estimate the model in three steps. I present simulation-based evidence to show that neglecting interdependencies among plant locations within a multi-plant firm introduces quantitatively relevant differences in estimation. Second, I estimate the multi-plant firm model developed in the first essay focusing on the cement industry in the US and Canada. Estimates reveal important features of this industry, especially fixed costs as a key determinant of the market structure. I apply the estimated model to quantify firm-level responses to changes in environmental, trade and competition policies, and highlight the welfare implications of having multi-plant production. Results indicate that a carbon tax of $50/tCO2 in Canada will generate carbon leakage to the US which offsets 18% of the domestic emissions abatement, and also exacerbate the market distortion. A unilateral tariff increase of 20% reduces domestic welfare and does not lead to significant increase in number of plants in the US. I also analyze a hypothetical acquisition in which the efficiency gains of multi-plant firms offset the effects from competition-lessening. Last, I study firms' sourcing decisions through rules of origin (RoOs) in regional trade agreements. They are a set of criteria that define the origin of a product to qualify for preferential access. This chapter distinguishes trade diversion through Ro…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/79453
note: DECISIONS OF MULTINATIONAL FIRMS: PLANTLOCATION AND SOURCINGbyChenying YangB.Sc., Singapore Management University, 2015A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYinThe Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies(Business Administration in Strategy & Business Economics)THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA(Vancouver)August 2021© Chenying Yang, 2021The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to theFaculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertationentitled:DECISIONS OF MULTINATIONAL FIRMS: PLANT LOCATIONAND SOURCINGsubmitted by Chenying Yang in partial fulfillment of the requirements for thedegree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Business Administration in Strat-egy & Business Economics.Examining Committee:Professor Keith Head, Sauder School of Business, UBCCo-supervisorProfessor John Ries, Sauder School of Business, UBCCo-supervisorProfessor Thomas Ross, Sauder School of Business, UBCUniversity ExaminerProfessor Kevin Song, Vancouver School of Economics, UBCUniversity ExaminerProfessor Eduardo Morales, Department of Economics, Princeton UniversityExternal ExaminerAdditional Supervisory Committee Members:Professor Sanghoon Lee, Sauder School of Business, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberProfessor A´lvaro Parra, Sauder School of Business, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberProfessor Hiroyuki Kasahara, Vancouver School of Economics, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberiiAbstractThe spatial distribution of economic activities is shaped by the way in whichfirms operate. I study firms’ intra- and inter-national decisions and how theirresponses to policies affect the social welfare.First, I develop a quantitative model of multi-plant oligopolists where firmsdecide on plant locations, export and pricing, taking into account competitionand cannibalization. I advance the existing trade literature on multinationalfirms by allowing for interdependent entry, oligopolistic rivalry and variablema…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2021-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0401727
language: eng
degree discipline: Business Administration - Strategy and Business Economics
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Head, Keith
contributor: Ries, John C.
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79453