Dr Christine Cote MAR.5.25

This course is available on the BSc in Accounting and Finance, BSc in Management, International Exchange (1 Term) and International Exchange (Full Year). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped). Students who have this course as a compulsory course are guaranteed a place. Places for all other students are allocated on a first come first served basis.

This course is not available to students with timetable clashes due to Harvard style of teaching. 

All students, including BSc Management students, must be in their 3rd year and should have taken Economics A (EC100) or Economics B (EC102) or Microeconomics I (EC1A3) in combination with Macroeconomics I (EC1B3), or equivalent.

This course cannot be taken with MG307 International Context of Management.

This course analyses the emergence of firms which operate on a global scale and their current and likely future interactions with emerging markets. It will combine the development of conceptual frameworks primarily through the lectures with the analysis of key cases in the classes.

Multinational firms have been an increasingly significant aspect of the corporate environment in developed countries since the 1960s, and are responsible for a high proportion of global output, exports and investment, as well as the bulk of foreign direct investment. In the past few decades their activities have been increasingly focused to developing economies, notably those which have liberalised and entered a more rapid growth phase. These economies, emerging markets, include some important world economies including China, India, transition economies such as Russia, and Latin American countries such as Brazil and Argentina. The "new institutional economics" has recently developed as a field to understand the impact of variation in institutions on economies' performance.

This course will focus on how the institutional characteristics of emerging markets affect the choices and behaviour of multinational firms, now and into the future. We commence with the basic framework of analysis of the behaviour of multinational enterprises (MNEs), outlining models of the MNE which draw on transaction cost economics, the eclectic OLI paradigm of Dunning, and more recent concepts such as the resource based view. We will provide an analysis of economic performance and growth in emerging markets building on the new institutional economies and working with a large variety of datasets and sources. The course will then turn to key topics. These will include the interaction between international trade and investment in the internationalisation choices of MNEs; the emergence of global supply chains; the determinants of FDI; the effects of FDI on the host economy; entry mode choices; measures of institutional and cultural distance; and the growing importance of multinationals from emerging markets.

Students will work with case material as well as the required reading, and the group project will comprise a case write up, which will be presented prior to submission in class for comment and discussion.

30 hours of lectures in the WT.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term, in line with departmental policy.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Students will undertake a formative essay (1500 words) for which feedback will be provided in preparation for the final summative coursework.

• Côté, C., Estrin, S. & Shapiro, D. Expanding the international trade and investment policy agenda: The role of cities and services. J Int Bus Policy (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-020-00053-x
• Zhan, James X. GVC transformation and a new investment landscape in the 2020s: Driving forces, directions, and a forward-looking research and policy agenda. Journal of International Business Policy (2021) 4, 206–220
• Dunning, John (1979). "Toward an Eclectic Theory of International Production: Some Empirical Tests". Journal of International Business Studies. 11 (1): 9–31.
• R. Caves, Multinational Enterprise and Economic Analysis, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press 1996;
• P. Ghenawat, Redefining Global Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2007;
• J. Williamson, The New Institutional Economies, Journal of Economic Literature, 2000;
• Estrin et. al., Entry Mode in Emerging Markets, Strategic Management Journal, 2009;
• T. Khanna and K Palepu, The Future of Business Groups in Emerging Markets, Academy of Management Journal 2004

Essay (50%) in the ST.
Project (40%) and class participation (10%) in the WT.

WT group project will be a case based project which will consist of a group presentation.