ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on exports by multinational food manufacturing firms and on direct investment in and operation of foreign affiliates. Modern measures of a country’s international competitiveness often incorporate sales from foreign affiliates of home firms. Foreign affiliation can occur in various ways, e.g., license production to a foreign firm, franchise a foreign firm to market products under the home firm’s trademark, acquire a minority interest in a foreign firm, develop a joint venture with a foreign partner, or obtain complete or majority ownership of foreign operations. Sales from foreign-owned food manufacturing operations in the United States (US) are considerably smaller than are those from US-owned affiliates abroad, but have been expanding at more rapid pace. Comparing all multinational firms with firms that have no foreign affiliates reveals that the latter are associated with a measurably higher Return on borrowed and invested capital than the former, implying that foreign direct investment comes at a cost in the profit account.
