Questions The Political Economy of the Multinational Corporation: Three Contrasting Perspectives Robert Gilpin The American Political

Science Review, Vol. 70, No. 1. (Mar., 1976), pp. 184-191. 1. How can the international political economy perspectives of Liberals, Marxists and Mercantilists be summarized in terms of nature of economic relations, nature of actors, goal of economic activity and relationship of economics and politics? Which perspective is more relevant for you and Why? 2. How Vernon does explain the American corporations advantage of the changes in technology? 3. What is defensive investment? To which perspective does this concept belong? 4. What are law of increasing firm size and the law of uneven development? What is the result of their combination according to Hyner? 5. How Marxists critique MNCs? 6. Which perspective of the MNCs does Gilpin adopts and why? The Boundaries of Multinational Enterprises and the Theory of International Trade James R. Markusen The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 9, No. 2. (Spring, 1995), pp. 169-189. 1. Why do developed countries account for the overwhelming proportion of outward direct foreign investment and are, at the same time, the major recipients of foreign direct investment? 2. How the article does elaborates the argument that there is little evidence which shows that direct foreign investment is related to differences in factor endowments across countries? States, Firms and Diplomacy Susan Strange International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 68, No. 1, (Jan., 1992), pp. 1-15 1- How globalization can reform diplomatic relations among states? 2- In what senses, democratic states are more eligible to integrate into global economy than autocratic states?

Reaction Synopsis National structures and multinational corporate behaviour: enduring differences in the age of globalization Louis W. Pauly and Simon Reich The article tries to find out an answer to the question that whether there is structural and strategic convergence at the cores of leading MNCs across the Triad (United States, Germany and Japan). The article is neither written from a liberal nor a critical perspective to the MNCs it claims to be in the middle with an argument on MNCs that there are differences on political institutions, economic institutions and dominant economic ideology that shape the core operations of multinational firms based in Germany, Japan, and the United States. They argue that while political institutions in United States characterised by liberal democracy with divided government and highly organized interest groups in Germany they are characterised by social democracy with weak bureaucracy and corporatist organizational legacy, in contrast in Japanese political institutions are characterised by developmental democracy with strong bureaucracy and reciprocal consent between state and firms. Economic institutions in United States are decentralized and markets are open, unconcentrated fluid capital markets. In Germany markets are organized, bank centred capital markets, there are certain cartels in the market and banks are universal. In Japan economic institutions are guided. It is difficult to penetrate to the markets, markets are bank centred capital markets, there are tight business networks and cartels exist in declining industries. Dominant economic ideology in United States is free enterprise liberalism while in Germany social partnership and in Japan technonationalism. The authors ends up their research with arguing that there are divergence across Germany, United States and Japan in their internal governance and long-term financing, in their R&D activities and and in their intertwined investment and trading strategies. They looked at patterns of shareholding, corporate managers, short or long term planning in the market, the relationship between banks and corporations to show divergence in their internal governance and long-term financing; they looked at investment in overseas R&D facilities, cuts in R&D spending when firms are under duress, corporate R&D strategies and shifting R&D activities abroad for the divergence in their R&D activities and they showed the divergence in investment and trading strategies by looking at how much they rely on intrafirm and intra-affiliate trading strategies. Moreover, they argue that firms must continuously adapt to dynamic markets in order to survive in a world where short-term capital is highly mobile and where certain technologies are changing quite rapidly. But they emphasize the role of the state by arguing the underlying nationality of the firm remains the vitally important determinant of the nature of its adaptation which is given by historical experience and the institutional and ideological legacies of their experience, both of which constitute the essential structures of states. The article in general was clear and presenting the argument in a very ordered manner. Just in same parts I felt like it is getting complicated to understand with analysis of firms and cross country analysis but still I did not feel that the writers are going beyond their argument so I found the article well presented.