Four Studies on Antitrust Enforcement and Foreign Investment Activities

Motivated by the potential for antitrust policy to contribute to de-globalization by deterring FDI, my dissertation studies how MNEs respond to the increased antitrust enforcement when engaging in foreign investment activities after the global financial crisis of 2008. I employ multi-level data on U.S. antitrust enforcement (industry-level), inward-FDI (industry-level), cross-border M&As (firm-level), and Greenfield FDI (firm-level) in the U.S. markets over 2002–2017 for empirical testing. The findings support my theoretical priors that U.S. antitrust enforcement increases after the global financial crisis, deters aggregated inward-FDI and foreign-acquirer-presence in local M&A markets, and attracts Greenfield FDI.