Many previous studies of the U.S. bond market have focused on the yield differential, the difference in yields on corporate and government bonds of the same maturity. These studies have generally found consistent and significant relationships between the yield differential and macroeconomic variables, with the yield differential being a positive function of the level of interest rates and the inflation rate and a negative function of the change in economic activity.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can be agents of positive climate action by deploying their vast resources, technology, capital, and collaborative partnerships. They can also promote cross-border mobility of corporate governance and regulatory standards. Allen et al. (J Int Bus Stud, 2024) provide a systematic descriptive analysis to support such an MNE role. In my commentary, I provide a perspective from low-income countries, particularly Africa. Although they face disproportionate climate impact, these economies possess abundant clean energy resources. I discuss the potential of MNEs to help unlock the value associated with these resources. On the financing side, MNE banks can deploy their technology and resources to promote climate finance startups. They can also play a role in public–private partnerships to unlock private capital at scale for low-income countries. Allen et al. focus on the bright side of the MNEs in climate action. I expand my commentary to provide a balanced view and discuss the dark side with a focus on Africa. In particular, I highlight the role of MNE banks in rapid sovereign debt build-up and difficulties in debt restructuring. Further, I discuss the role of MNEs in capital flight. Successful debt distress resolutions and curbing capital flight can free up resources for green financing.

IB is a field constrained not only in time, but also in economic model (institutional, country-level, and developmental variation) and intellectual direction. We need more: a transformation of IB that involves a synthesis and integration of temporal, spatial and developmental data from around the world.

This paper examines the risk of US direct foreign investments over the period 1982–98 in 59 host countries. The first part of the analysis builds an empirical model to explain the time-series and cross-country patterns of return on capital. The estimation then uses the return on assets (ROA) as a measure of the return on capital, and investigates its determinants. There are four main findings. First, the ROA in a majority of countries does not simply track the worldwide ROA. Second, some cross-country differences are explained by financial risks. Third, unexplained country risk is qualitatively and quantitatively related to unobserved political risk. Fourth, unexplained country risk is also compensated with a higher ROA, enhancing its credibility as a measure of political risk. The unexplained country risk is thus used to calculate a new index of political risk ratings for 56 host countries that may be useful to managers, investors, policymakers, and academics.

This paper argues that structural characteristics of knowledge-diffusion networks, such as density levels, centralization levels, and the presence of global knowledge brokers, contribute to the emergence of dominant designs and the competitiveness of countries' firms and industries. It further suggests that national institutional structures and firm-specific attributes influence the development of these knowledge-diffusion networks. Six propositions, developed from examination of one industry's networks and previous scholarly literature, specify these arguments.

In this paper, I test the common assumption that Japanese firms strive to appropriate knowledge from the global scientific community while sharing little in return. I found no support for this conventional perspective in the flat panel display industry. U.S. firms shared no more knowledge with their global scientific community than Japanese firms. Similarly, Japanese firms appropriated no more knowledge from the global community than their U.S. counterparts.

This paper investigates and models the transition process within established multinational corporations (MNCs) in moving from decentralized toward network-based structures. Whereas there has been substantial research on various MNC models, there has been little longitudinal research on the movement toward projected network-based models. This paper develops an evolutionary perspective of this transition, distinguishing adjustments altering how the MNC defines its “global” strategy, where it locates key resources, and how it structures and manages operations. It argues that rather then being a planned process, each phase represents a viable strategic response to then-existing challenges and opportunities. The paper also argues that the focus of the process shifts over time, initially focusing on building organizational linkages and adjusting the quantity and nature of resources within dispersed units, and later shifting toward reallocating resources and roles across units.