Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2019
  • Chapter
  • The Oxford Handbook of Structural Transformation

Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Multinationals exhibit distinct agglomeration patterns, which have transformed the global landscape of industrial production (Alfaro and Chen, 2014). Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for plants in over 100 countries, we construct a spatially continuous index of pairwise-industry agglomeration and investigate the patterns and determinants underlying the global economic geography of multinational firms. In particular, we run a horserace between two distinct economic forces: location fundamentals and agglomeration economies. We find that location fundamentals, including market access and comparative advantage, and agglomeration economies, including capital-good market externality and technology diffusion, play a particularly important role in multinationals' economic geography. These findings remain robust when we use alternative measures of trade costs, address potential reverse causality, and explore regional patterns.

Keywords

Multinational Firm; Economic Geography; Agglomeration; Location Fundamentals; Agglomeration Economies; Multinational Firms and Management; Geographic Location; Industry Clusters; Economics

Citation

Alfaro, Laura, and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen. "Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms." Chap. 10 in The Oxford Handbook of Structural Transformation, edited by Célestin Monga and Justin Yifu Lin. Oxford University Press, 2019.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Laura Alfaro

General Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy Across Races: Evidence from the U.S. Credit Register

    By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia and Camelia Minoiu
    • March 2022
    • Faculty Research

    El Salvador: Launching Bitcoin as Legal Tender

    By: Laura Alfaro, Carla Larangeira and Ruth Costas
    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Can Evidence-Based Information Shift Preferences Towards Trade Policy?

    By: Laura Alfaro, Maggie X. Chen and Davin Chor
More from the Authors
  • Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy Across Races: Evidence from the U.S. Credit Register By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia and Camelia Minoiu
  • El Salvador: Launching Bitcoin as Legal Tender By: Laura Alfaro, Carla Larangeira and Ruth Costas
  • Can Evidence-Based Information Shift Preferences Towards Trade Policy? By: Laura Alfaro, Maggie X. Chen and Davin Chor
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College