• • Analyse the opportunities that a firm faces with respect to location. This includes consideration of whether to export or to become a multinational. This decision in turn, includes evaluation of differences in production costs, taxes, tariffs and growth opportunities.
• • Analyse the policy choices faced by governments in the presence of internationally mobile firms
• • Apply the taught theoretical models of international economic aspects to real world situations.
• • Explain empirical findings on firms’ internationalisation behaviour and
• • Develop new hypotheses on unexplained trends.

Why do some firms become global while others just stay domestic? Why do some choose to outsource production to other firms while others produce everything inside the firm? Are exporting firms more productive firms or are they just firms with a good product? How does the presence of multinational firms shapegovernment policies?These are some of the questions that will be answered in “The Global Firm” course. The course partly builds on recent developments in international trade theory that put emphasis on firm behaviour and characteristics rather than country characteristics (the standard international economics approach) and partly draws on contributions in international taxation. Using modern theories of firm heterogeneity and incomplete contracting, the course will bring together views on firms’ internationalisation behaviour.