ABSTRACT
Ten years ago industrial economics, international economics and business history were relatively stagnant areas of research. The stagnation in industrial and international economics was particularly surprising as there were very important contemporary developments which affected both these disciplines. Prominent among these developments was the rapid growth of multinational firms and their foreign direct investments. Logically, the analysis of the multinational firm lies at the interface of industrial and international economics. Yet the growth of the multinational firm could not be explained by a straightforward synthesis of the orthodox theories of the time. As a result, the study of multinational firms remained divorced from mainstream economics.
