Abstract
This paper reports on an attempt to explain inter-industry differences in the pattern of intra-firm exports (exports from parent MNCs to affiliates abroad) by US manufacturing firms in 1970. The growth of intra-firm exports of manufactures in the past two decades has been noted with interest in the literature, though much of this interest has centred on the possibilities of transfer price manipulation by MNCs.2 No serious effort has, to my knowledge, yet been made to examine the economic factors which account for the wide inter-industry differences observed in the propensity to use intra-firm rather than unrelated-party (or ‘open market’) trade, despite the significance of these differences for understanding MNC strategy and for formulating policies to deal with the potential dangers of transfer price manipulation.3
I am very grateful to Gerry Helleiner and John Knight for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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© 1980 Sanjaya Lall
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Lall, S. (1980). The Pattern of Intra-Firm Exports by US Multinationals. In: The Multinational Corporation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05228-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05228-8_4
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