nep-iaf New Economics Papers
on International Activities of Firms
Issue of 2025–11–24
six papers chosen by
Joachim Wagner, Leuphana Universität


  1. Overseas Expansion of Japanese Firms and Domestic Women’s Active Engagement By Bin NI; Ayako OBASHI; Ting YIN
  2. How Global Are Local Value Chains? By Alessandro Borin; Francesco Paolo Conteduca; Fabrizio Leone; Michele Mancini; Patrick Zoi
  3. The Causal Effects of Trump's Reelection on Business Expectations of German Firms By Jonas Dovern; Klaus Wohlrabe
  4. Labor Market Power, Export Prices and Pass-through By Malik Curuk; Jérôme Héricourt; Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
  5. The Instruments of Profit Shifting By Kevin Parra Ramirez; Vincent Vicard
  6. Matching Compustat Data to the Longitudinal Business Database, 1976-2020 By Cristina Tello-Trillo; Lawrence Schmidt; Sean Streiff

  1. By: Bin NI; Ayako OBASHI; Ting YIN
    Abstract: This paper empirically investigates whether more internationalized firms narrowed within-firm gender wage gaps in Japan in response to institutional reform aimed at promoting women’s active engagement in the workplace. Specifically, we constructed a dataset by linking the Basic Survey on Wage Structure with the Basic Survey of Japanese Business Structure and Activities. We estimated changes in female workers’ wages relative to their male counterparts before and after the institutional reform under the Act on the Promotion of Women’s Active Engagement in Professional Life, using the triple difference method, which accounts for the firm’s degree of internationalization as measured by the status of outward foreign direct investment (FDI). The analysis revealed that firms engaging in FDI experienced a statistically significant narrowing of the gender wage gap following the institutional reform relative to those that do not engage in FDI. Furthermore, analysis confirmed that the effect was more pronounced for firms with a greater number of overseas subsidiaries. These results suggest that FDI-active firms tend to respond more proactively to the reform, undertaking within-firm labor reallocation and internal transformations aimed at fostering a gender-equitable work environment. Furthermore, firms operating in countries and regions with significant time zone differences from Japan tend to experience a relatively weaker narrowing of the gender wage gap. This indicates that greater time differences may necessitate more flexible working hours, potentially leading to unfavorable evaluations for female workers and diminishing the effectiveness of institutional reform.
    Date: 2025–11
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:25109
  2. By: Alessandro Borin; Francesco Paolo Conteduca; Fabrizio Leone; Michele Mancini; Patrick Zoi
    Abstract: This paper examines how international trade shocks transmit through domestic supply chains, shaping local economic vulnerabilities. Using detailed firm-to-firm domestic and foreign transaction data, we quantify the direct and indirect exposure of Italian labor markets to two major sources of external risk: imports from China and exports to the United States. We quantify the importance of firms’ domestic and foreign linkages for overall exposure and highlight the critical role of wholesalers and top trading firms within the domestic network in shaping tails risks. Pronounced local disparities in exposure reveal that aggregate trade statistics conceal substantial and uneven regional vulnerabilities.
    Keywords: global value chains, local labor markets, trade shocks, firm-to-firm linkages, geopolitical fragmentation, production network
    JEL: F14 R12 L14 F61 R15
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12271
  3. By: Jonas Dovern; Klaus Wohlrabe
    Abstract: This paper studies the causal effects of the 2024 US presidential election on business expectations of German manufacturing firms. It exploits the variation in the timing of survey responses to identify shifts in expectations around the election. The probability of reporting negative expectations increases by 12 percentage points. The effect is driven by exporters, especially those exposed to the US economy. It is concentrated among firms that had not anticipated Trump’s re-election, indicating rational expectation updating. Firms reduce planned investment expenditures. The results provide novel evidence that firms are attentive and quickly revise expectations in response to salient policy events.
    Keywords: election, survey expectation, export exposure, US president, rational inattention
    JEL: D72 E32 E65
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12266
  4. By: Malik Curuk; Jérôme Héricourt; Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
    Abstract: Estimating the effects of goods and labor market power on firm pricing behavior is difficult since firm-level output and employment are jointly determined. We exploit the variation in the sets of destination countries across exporting firms, which enables us to separately identify the effects of goods and labor market power on pass-through rates by reducing the comovement of firm size across specific sales markets and in its local labor market. We present a theoretical framework in which multi-destination exporters are oligopolists in their goods markets and oligopsonists in their local labor market. Combining firm-level trade data per product-destination with establishment-level balance sheet data and employment zone identifiers for the universe of French firms from 1995 to 2015, we construct theoretically sound proxies for labor and goods market power and jointly estimate their effects on export prices using exchange rate shocks as the source of identifying variation in firm demand. Consistent with the model's predictions, we provide robust evidence that firms with stronger labor market power have a lower pass-through of changes in their effective exchange rate into export prices conditional on their goods market power. The findings indicate a sizable degree of labor market power for French exporters.
    Keywords: Labor Market Power;Goods Market Power;Exchange Rate;Pass-through
    JEL: F16 F31 J42
    Date: 2025–11
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2025-15
  5. By: Kevin Parra Ramirez; Vincent Vicard
    Abstract: While multinational enterprises (MNEs) shift hundreds of billions in profits to low-tax jurisdictions annually, how they do remains disputed. Using firm-level data for France in 2018, we provide the first joint quantification of the three main profit-shifting channels: transfer mispricing in goods trade, intangible assets and services traded with tax havens, and intra-firm debt. We find empirical evidence for all three instruments, but transfer mispricing dominates quantitatively (€10 billion, 0.4\% of GDP), followed by services (up to €6 billion) and debt (€2 billion). Although significant, these direct estimates account for half of total missing profits in France, as estimated indirectly from the location of MNE profits. We document two key blind spots likely to close this gap: cross-border digital payments by households and understudied debt instruments (e.g., securities).
    Keywords: Tax Avoidance;Multinational Firms;Profit Shifting;FDI;Trade
    JEL: H26 H25 H32 F14 F23
    Date: 2025–11
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2025-16
  6. By: Cristina Tello-Trillo; Lawrence Schmidt; Sean Streiff
    Abstract: This paper details the methodology for creating an updated Compustat-Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) bridge, facilitating linkage between company identifiers in Compustat and firm identifiers in the LBD. In addition to data from Compustat, we incorporate historical data on public companies from various public and private sources, including information on executive names. Our methodology involves a series of stages using fuzzy name and address matching, including EIN, telephone number, and industry code matching. Qualified researchers with approved proposals can access this bridge though the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers. The Compustat-SSL bridge serves as a crucial resource for longitudinal studies on U.S. businesses, corporate governance, and executive compensation.
    Date: 2025–09
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-65

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