Expansion Abroad and Jobs at Home – Evidence from Japanese Multinational Enterprises

This paper examines the exporting job hypothesis that expansion of overseas operations of manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs) reduces home employment using data for Japanese MNEs. While the existing studies are mainly based on the industry level data, this paper presents the evidence using a newly constructed firm-level panel data set over the period 1991-2002. The evidence does not support the widely-held view in Japanese policy circles that that overseas operations of MNEs expand at the cost of home employment. On the contrary, there is some evidence that overseas operations may have helped to maintain the level of home employment.