Dr. Yuting Chen had a paper published online in the Journal of Development Economics, a tier-one journal in SUFE list. The paper, titled“Informal Institutions and Comparative Advantage of South-based MNEs: Theory and Evidence”, was coauthored with Dr. Pao-Li Chang.
Abstract
This paper builds a theory based on “informal institutions” to characterize the comparative advantage of South-based MNEs. MNEs headquartered in countries with poorer state institutions are shown to endogenously invest more in firm-specific institutional capital to compensate for the lack of state institutions, and as an optimal response, undertake FDI in countries with weaker institutions. We conduct an extensive test of the theory using worldwide firm-level greenfield FDI flows during 2009–2016, employing (among others) variations in the interaction of prevalence of informal institutions at home and state institutional qualities of host countries, as well as heterogeneity across sectors and firms in their sensitivity to institutional support.
Assistant Professor Yuting Chen joined the SOE as a tenure-track faculty member in 2019. She holds a PhD in economics from Singapore Management University and her primary area of research is international economics and development economics.
