Exploring New Markets: Direct Investment, Contractual Relations and the Multinational Enterprise
研究跨国企业进入新市场时，是选择立即直接投资，还是先与当地代理商签约、之后再投资。代理商掌握市场信息，能帮企业避免错误，但也会索取信息租金。研究发现，当市场平均规模大且预期利润下行风险小时，直接投资更优。
We consider the multinational firm's decision on whether to enter a new market immediately via direct investment or to contract initially with a local agent and (possibly) invest later. Use of a local agent allows the multinational to avoid costly mistakes by finding out if the market is large enough to support direct investment. However, the agent is able to extract information rents from the multinational due to being better informed about market characteristics. We find that direct investment is the desirable mode of entry when the market is on average large and there is little down- side risk in expected profits.