Cross-border mergers and acquisitions vs. greenfield foreign direct investment: The role of firm heterogeneity

We develop a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to address two sets of questions: (1) what are the characteristics of firms that choose the various modes of foreign market access (exporting, greenfield FDI, and cross-border M&A), and (2) how does the international organization of production vary across industries and country-pairs? We show that the answers to these questions depend on the nature of firm heterogeneity. Depending on whether firms differ in their mobile or immobile capabilities, crossborder mergers involve the most or the least efficient active firms. The comparative statics on industry and country characteristics display a similar dichotomy. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.