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Foreign Activities (foreign + activity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting100%

Selected Abstracts

Why Do Banks Go Abroad?,Evidence from German Data

FINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 1 2000
Claudia M. Buch
This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of foreign activities of German banks. We use regionally disaggregated panel data for the years 1981,98 and distinguish foreign direct investment from total foreign assets of domestic banks, of their foreign branches and of their subsidiaries. Foreign activities are found to be positively related to demand conditions on the local market, foreign activities of German firms, and the presence of financial centers. This supports the hypothesis that German banks follow their customers abroad. Exchange rate volatility has some negative impact. EU membership and the abolition of capital controls seem to have exerted a greater influence on foreign assets than on FDI of German banks, thus weakly supporting the hypothesis that the two are substitutes. [source]

Determinants and effects of foreign direct investment: evidence from German firm-level data*

ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 41 2005
Claudia M. Buch
SUMMARY FDI Firm-level evidence Foreign direct investment is an essential aspect of ,globalization' yet its empirical determinants are not well understood. What we do know is based either on poor data for a wide range of nations, or good data for the US and Swedish cases. In this paper, we provide evidence on the determinants of the activities of German multinational firms by using a newly available firm-level data set from the Deutsche Bundesbank. The specific goal of this paper is to demonstrate the relative role of country-level and firm-level determinants of foreign direct investment. We focus on three main questions: First, what are the main driving forces of German firms' multinational activities? Second, is there evidence that sector-level and firm-level factors shape internationalization patterns? Third, is there evidence of agglomeration effects in the foreign activities of German firms? We find that the market access motive for internationalization dominates. Firms move abroad mainly to gain better access to large foreign markets. Cost-saving motives, however, are important for some manufacturing sectors. Our results strongly suggest that firm-level heterogeneity has an important influence on internationalization patterns , as stressed by recent models of international trade. We also find positive agglomeration effects for the activities of German firms that stem from the number of other German firms that are active on a given foreign market. In terms of lessons for economic policy, our results show that lowering barriers to the integration of markets and encouraging the formation of human capital can promote the activities of multinational firms. However, our results related to the heterogeneity of firms and agglomeration tendencies show that it might be difficult to fine-tune policies directed at the exploitation of synergies and at the creation of clusters of foreign firms. , Claudia M. Buch, Jörn Kleinert, Alexander Lipponer and Farid Toubal [source]

Why Do Banks Go Abroad?,Evidence from German Data

FINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 1 2000
Claudia M. Buch
This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of foreign activities of German banks. We use regionally disaggregated panel data for the years 1981,98 and distinguish foreign direct investment from total foreign assets of domestic banks, of their foreign branches and of their subsidiaries. Foreign activities are found to be positively related to demand conditions on the local market, foreign activities of German firms, and the presence of financial centers. This supports the hypothesis that German banks follow their customers abroad. Exchange rate volatility has some negative impact. EU membership and the abolition of capital controls seem to have exerted a greater influence on foreign assets than on FDI of German banks, thus weakly supporting the hypothesis that the two are substitutes. [source]

The Exports Transmission Mechanism of Foreign Business Cycles to Australia

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 240 2002
Nicolas De Roos
The present paper examines the impact of foreign business cycles on Australian exports. After accounting for the effect of domestic activity on exports it has been found that foreign activity has at times had a large impact on Australian exports and, therefore, also on Australian GDP. Evidence is also found that the US and Japan have a high output elasticity of demand for Australia's exports. Consequently, their business cycles have a larger impact on Australia's exports than that suggested by their market shares of Australian exports. [source]