• Analyse the opportunities that a firm faces with respect to location when considering whether to export or to become a multinational, evaluation of differences in production costs, taxes, tariffs and growth opportunities.
• Analyse the interaction between firms, and firm and government, in connection with becoming a multinational firm.
• Explain the opportunities that multinational firms have in shifting profits, and how that could be constrained by government regulations.
• Evaluate the positive and negative aspects of multinational firms.
• Discuss the theoretical models of international aspects covered in the course.
• Apply the taught theoretical models of international economic aspects to real world situations.

The course focuses on the most profund example that we have of how firms operate in the global economy, viz. multinational enterprises.
 
The first half of the course focuses on positive aspects of multinationals' behaviour, i.e. what determines their choices of where to produce, and how to to serve foreign markets: exporting, investing abroad, or licensing its production abroad.  A central element of the course is to document that becoming multinational is an endogenous choice that accrues to the most efficient firms.
 
The second half of the course focuses on normative aspects of multinationals' behaviour, i.e. whether there are positive productivity spillover effects to domestic firms from attracting multinationals and, moreover, whether multinationals can be easily regulated by domestic governments. Within this latter issue, we focus on whether there exists a, so-called, race-to-the-bottom type of externality with respect to corporate income taxation.
 

Multinational Firms, Foreign Direct Investment, Locational Theories, Productivity Spillovers, Tax Competiton, Fiscal Externalities.
 

The course builds on knowledge from Microeconomics and Industrial Organization. Knowledge of International Economics will be helpful.