MULTINATIONALS AND US PRODUCTIVITY LEADERSHIP: EVIDENCE FROM GREAT
We study the productivity of US and other foreign owned plants in the UK. Using a new dataset that can identify for the flrst time domestic UK MNEs in such a study, we flnd that UK MNEs are less productive than US a‐liates, but as productive as non US foreign a‐liates. Exploiting dynamic variation in our data, we flnd evidence suggesting that this additional US advantage is due to the takeover of already highly productive UK plants rather than the sharing of superior flrm speciflc assets. The study also features a novel approach to TFP calculation. JEL Classiflcation: F230, L600 Keywords: Multinational Firms, Productivity, Foreign Ownership, US leadership ⁄ This work contains statistical data from the O‐ce of National Statistics (ONS) which is Crown copyright and reproduced with the permission of the controller of HMSO and Queen’s Printer for Scotland. The use of the ONS statistical data in this work does not imply endorsement of the ONS in relation to the interpretation or analysis of the statistical data. y We thank two anonymous referees for extremely helpful comments, plus Lee Branstetter, Tony