The Location of Cross-Border and National Mergers and Acquisitions within the United States

Steven Brakman, Harry Garretsen, Charles van Marrewijk, Arjen van Witteloostuijn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Research on the location choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) focuses on the choice between countries. The within-country location choice is either not analyzed at all or restricted to greenfield investments only. The majority of FDI, however, takes the form of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We develop and test a pair of hypotheses regarding location-target selection for both cross-border and national M&As across the United States, expecting differences in line with the liability of foreignness argument. Using a detailed firm-level data set for M&As in the period 1985–2012, we compare location choices of cross-border versus national M&As. We find that cross-border M&As are more spatially concentrated, and tend to sort into larger agglomerations than national M&As. This finding holds both for urban agglomerations in isolation, as well as for agglomerations that take the economic geography of the United States into account.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)177-206
Number of pages30
JournalJournal of Economics and Management Strategy
Volume32
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2023

Keywords

  • Agglomeration economies
  • Assignment models
  • Comparative advantage
  • Fdi
  • Foreign direct-investment
  • Geographic concentration
  • Manufacturing-industries
  • Multinational firms
  • Performance
  • Subnational region matter

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