seminar für komparative wirtschaftsforschung

Internationally active firms rely intensively on trade credits even though they are considered particularly expensive. This phenomenon has been little explored so far. Our theoretical analysis shows that trade credits can alleviate financial constraints arising from asymmetric information because they serve as a quality signal and reduce the uncertainty related to international transactions. We use unique survey data on German enterprises to test the effect of the use of trade credits on firms' exporting and importing behavior, both at the extensive and intensive margins. Our results support the assertion that trade credits have a positive impact on firms' exporting and importing activities.

This paper analyzes the tax haven investment behavior of multinational firms from a country that exempts foreign income from taxation. High foreign tax rates generally encourage firms to invest in tax havens, though significant costs of reallocating taxable income dampen these incentives. The behavior of German manufacturing firms from 2002-2008 is consistent with this prediction: at the mean, one percentage point higher foreign tax rates are associated with three percentage point greater likelihoods of owning tax haven affiliates. This contrasts with earlier evidence for U.S. firms subject to home country taxation, which are more likely to invest in tax havens if they face lower foreign tax rates. Foreign tax rates appear to be unrelated to tax haven investments of German firms in service industries, possibly reflecting the difficulty they face in reallocating taxable income.

Recent evidence suggests that despite opening up a country for trade, the productivity gap between developed and emerging economies often does not close. This paper examines credit constraints as one channel held responsible for hampering convergence. Specifically, we extend a Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) type trade model with variable mark-ups to allow for endogenous technology adoption. We consider a framework with two countries that potentially differ with respect to credit market development. Firms have the option to adopt a more efficient technology by paying some fixed cost. A fraction of the fixed technology adoption cost has to be financed externally: in a less developed credit market, the costs of external finance and thus the total costs of technology adoption are higher. A reduction in trade costs raises demand abroad (pro technology-adoption effect) but reduces demand at home because of import competition (anti technology-adoption effect). We find that trade liberalization increases economic performance, that is average productivity and technology adoption, in both countries but that the productivity gap widens. Simulations show that the welfare gap widens too. Opening up without sufficient access to external funding thus fails to promote convergence.

This paper explores the impact of financial constraints on the internationalization strategies of firms. It contributes to the literature by focusing on three aspects: First, the paper studies the impact of financial constraints on exporting relative to FDI. Consistent with theory, the empirical results confirm that the impact of financial constraints is stronger for FDI than for exporting. Second, the paper analyzes the extensive and the intensive margins and finds that financial frictions matter for both. Third, the paper explores the impact on manufacturing as compared to service industries and shows that firms in service industries are affected more than firms in manufacturing. The paper also identifies a threshold effect: Financial constraints do not matter for small firms whose productivity seems to be too low to consider international expansions.

We examine micro-level channels of how financial development can affect macroeconomic outcomes like the level of income and export intensity. We investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation and export activities, using unique firm survey data which provides direct measures for innovations and firm-specific financial constraints. We find that financial constraints restraint heability of domestically owned firms to innovate and export and hence to catch up to the technological frontiers. This negative effect is amplified as financial constraints force export and innovation activities to become substitutes although they are generally natural complements.

We analyze the optimal debt structure of multinational corporations choosing between centralized or decentralized borrowing. We identify how this choice is affected by creditor rights and bankruptcy costs, taking into account managerial incentives and coinsurance considerations. We find that partially centralized borrowing structures are optimal with either weak or strong creditor rights. For intermediate levels of creditor rights fully decentralized (centralized) borrowing structures are optimal if managers have strong (weak) empire building dencies. Decentralized borrowing is more attractive for companies focussing on short-term profitability. Credits are rather taken in countries with better creditor rights and more efficient insolvency systems.

Recent literature on multinational firms has stressed the importance of low productivity as a barrier to the cross-border expansion of firms. But firms may also need external finance to shoulder the costs of entering foreign markets. We develop a model of multinational firms facing real and financial barriers to foreign direct investment (FDI), and we analyze their impact on the FDI decision (the extensive margin) and foreign affiliate sales (the intensive margin). We provide empirical evidence based on a detailed dataset of German multinationals which contains information on parent-level and affiliate-level financial constraints as well as on the location the foreign affiliates. We find that financial factors constrain firms’ foreign investment decisions, an effect felt in particular by large firms. Financial constraints at the parent level matter for the extensive, but less so for the intensive margin. For the intensive margin, financial constraints at the affiliate level are relatively more important.

Recent literature on multinational firms has stressed the importance of low productivity as a barrier to the cross-border expansion of firms. But firms may also need external finance to shoulder the costs of entering foreign markets. We develop a model of multinational firms facing real and financial barriers to foreign direct investment (FDI), and we analyze their im-pact on the FDI decision (the extensive margin) and foreign affiliate sales (the intensive margin). We provide empirical evidence based on a detailed dataset of German multinationals which contains information on parent-level and affiliate-level financial constraints as well as on the location the foreign affiliates. We find that financial factors constrain firms’ foreign investment decisions, an effect felt in particular by large firms. Financial constraints at the parent level matter for the extensive, but less so for the intensive margin. For the intensive margin, financial constraints at the affiliate level are relatively more important.

Microfinance is typically associated with joint liability of group members. However, a large part of microfinance institutions rather offers individual instead of group loans. We analyze the incentive mechanisms in both individual and group contracts. Moreover, we show that microfinance institutions offer group loans when the loan size is rather large, refinancing costs are high, and competition between microfinance institutions is low. Otherwise, individual loans are offered. Interestingly, our analysis predicts that individual lending in microfinance will gain in importance in the future if microfinance institutions continue to get better access to capital markets and if competition further rises.

When expanding abroad, a multinational bank faces a trade-off between accessing a foreign country via cross border lending or a financial foreign direct investment, i.e. greenfield or acquisition entry. We analyze the entry mode choice of multinational banks and explicitly derive the entry mode pattern in the banking industry. Moreover, we show that in less developed banking markets, a trend towards cross border lending and acquisition entry exists. Greenfield entry prevails in more developed markets. Furthermore, we identify a tendency towards acquisition entry in small and towards greenfield entry in larger host countries.

Microfinance is typically associated with joint liability of group members. However, a large part of microfinance institutions rather offers individual instead of group loans. We analyze the incentive mechanisms in both individual and group contracts. Moreover, we show that microfinance institutions offer group loans when the loan size is rather large, refinancing costs are high, and competition between microfinance institutions is low. Otherwise, individual loans are offered. Interestingly, our analysis predicts that individual lending in microfinance will gain in importance in the future if microfinance institutions continue to get better access to capital markets and if competition further rises.

The current economic policy discussion on financial integration in the European Union concentrates on cross-border mergers. We study the impact of cross-border lending in a theoretical model where banks acquire either hard or soft information on borrowing firms and predict that the closer firms are to the border the more likely banks are to offer them cross-border loans. This hypothesis is confirmed in the ifo Business Climate Survey that reports the perceptions of German firms on banks lending behavior between 2003 and 2006. In contrast to the policy of harmonization, differences in bank regulations may provide incentives for cross-border lending. Thus, we show that financial integration may take place from the bottom up.

The effects of bank competition and institutions on credit markets are usually studied separately although both factors are interdependent. We study the effect of bank competition on the choice of contracts (screening versus collateralized credit contract) and explicitly capture the impact of the institutional environment. Most importantly, we show that the effects of bank competition on collateralization, access to finance, and social welfare depend on the institutional environment. We predict that firms' access to credit increases in bank competition if institutions are weak but bank competition does not matter if they are well-developed.

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the upstream conditions mainly affect the distribution of profits. We compare the welfare effects of upstream versus downstream deregulation policies and show that the impact of deregulation may be overvalued when ignoring feedback effects from the other market. Furthermore, we analyze how different forms of vertical restraints influence the endogenous market structure and show when they are welfare enhancing.

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the upstream conditions mainly affect the distribution of profits. We compare the welfare effects of upstream versus downstream deregulation policies and show that the impact of deregulation may be overvalued when ignoring feedback effects from the other market. Furthermore, we analyze how different forms of vertical restraints influence the endogenous market structure and show when they are welfare enhancing.

Should the European Union grant state aid through an institution like the European Investment bank? This paper evaluates the efficiency of different measures for granting state aid. We use a theoretical model with firms that differ in their creditworthiness and compare different types of subsidies with indirect subsidization through public banks. We find that, in a large parameter range, the politician prefers public banks to direct subsidies because they avoid windfall gains to entrepreneurs and they economize on screening costs. For similar reasons, they may increase social welfare relative to subsidies. One important prerequisite for this result is that public banks must not be allowed to fully compete with private banks. However, from a welfare perspective, a politician uses public banks inefficiently often.

Why do banks remain passive? In a model of bank-firm relationship we study the trade-off a bank faces when having defaulting firms declared bankrupt. First, the bank receives a payoff if a firm is liquidated. Second, it provides information about a firm’s type to its competitors. Thereby, asymmetric information between banks is reduced and bank competition intensifies. We find that the better the institutions and the more competitive the banking sector, the higher the bank’s incentive to bankrupt defaulting firms. This makes information between banks less asymmetric and thus leads to lower interest rates and less credit rationing.

It has been argued that competing banks make inefficiently frequent use of collateralization in situations where they are better able to evaluate a project’s risk than entrepreneurs. We study the bank’s choice between screening and collateralization in a model where banks do not have this superior screening skill. In particular, we study the effect of bank competition on this choice. We find that competing banks use collateral less often than a monopolistic bank because competition will intensify if both banks collateralize. Moreover, bank competition is welfare improving if collateralization is rather costly.

This paper investigates how multinational firms choose their capital structure in response to political risk. We focus on two choice variables, the leverage and the ownership structure of the foreign affiliate, and we distinguish different types of political risk, like expropriation, corruption and confiscatory taxation, and In our theoretical analysis we find that as political risk increases the ownership share always decreases whereas leverage can both increase or decrease, depending on the type of political risk. Using the Microdatabase Direct Investment of the Deutsche Bundesbank, we find supportive evidence for these different effects.

Previous empirical work on the link between domestic and foreign investment provides mixed results which partly depend on the level of aggregation of the data. We argue that the aggregated home country implications of foreign direct investment (FDI) cannot be gauged using firm-level data. Aggregated data, in turn, miss channels through which domestic and foreign activities interact. Instead, industry-level data provide useful information on the link between domestic and foreign investment. We theoretically show that the effects of FDI on the domestic capital stock depend on the structure of industries and the relative importance of domestic and multinational firms. Our model allows distinguishing intra-sector competition from inter-sector linkage effects. We test the model using data on German FDI. Using panel cointegration methods, we find evidence for a positive long-run impact of FDI on the domestic capital stock and on the stock of inward FDI. Effects of FDI on the domestic capital stock are driven mainly by intrasector effects. For inward FDI, inter-sector linkages matter as well.