Multinationals Here and There: Affiliates' Response to Global Crises
Constance Marette
Camilo Umana Dajud
Vincent Vicard
Constance Marette
Camilo Umana Dajud
Vincent Vicard

- Multinational enterprises (MNEs) outperformed domestic firms after the pandemic, especially through stronger domestic affiliate performance.
- The paper uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment and applies a difference-in-differences approach with firm-level data across countries.
- MNEs exhibited a clear home bias, with significantly greater employment growth in domestic affiliates compared to foreign ones.
- Employment adjustment patterns within MNEs continued through 2022, indicating lasting changes in global location strategies.

This paper investigates how multinational enterprises (MNEs) adapted their global operations in the post COVID-19 period. Using the pandemic as a natural experiment, we analyze how MNEs adjusted employment across their foreign and domestic affiliates in response to economic disruptions and shifting perceptions. Leveraging a crosscountry, firm-level dataset, we employ a difference-in-differences approach among treated groups to assess the causal differential response of MNEs relative to domestic firms. MNEs outperformed domestic firms following the pandemic, driven primarily by the stronger performance of their domestic affiliates. We also find evidence of home bias in adjustments within MNEs: employment growth was significantly higher in domestic affiliates than in foreign ones. These patterns intensified through 2022, suggesting persistent shifts in MNE strategies.


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