ABSTRACT
Traditional theories of imperialism have traced the impetus for foreign economic expansion to the need of an outlet for surplus capital generated in advanced capitalist states. The study of the growth of the firm in the United States (US) suggests that corporate managers have felt, and will continue to feel, that pressures for foreign economic expansion are much more a compelling need or even an institutional necessity than merely a profitable convenience. Is foreign economic expansion in some sense an “institutional necessity” for corporate capitalism in the US? Recent studies of US corporate expansion, aimed at testing the model of the product cycle and the growth of the firm, have found overwhelming evidence in support of the model. The study of corporate growth in the US shows that economic expansion abroad results from the struggle to expand and defend the capacity to exact oligopoly rents.
