RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PERFORMED ABROAD BY U. S. MANUFACTURING MULTINATIONALS
研究美国制造业跨国公司海外研发活动的演变，发现研发地点决策主要受非传统因素如首次海外生产时间影响，而非研发要素成本差异，并验证了满意决策方法的价值。
This study develops and empirically tests a ‘scenario’ describing the evolution of a typical American multinational manufacturing corporation's (AMMC's) foreign research and development (R & D) activity. It finds that international differences in R & D factor costs probably have very little effect on R & D location decisions. The critical variables appear instead to be less traditional things like the time elapsed since the AMMC first engaged in foreign production. That such variables were discovered and emphasized in the study is a result of the ‘satisficing’ approach adopted in its ‘scenario’. In vindicating that approach, the paper's findings also show the need for economic theorizing to take explicit account of the fact that information costs something to obtain and to use.