Pelegrín Solé, ÀngelsGarcia-Quevedo, Jose2017-10-092017-10-092012https://hdl.handle.net/2445/116368In line with the literature that considers that transaction costs, asset specificity and incomplete contracts play a key role in the “make or buy decision”, this paper seeks to discriminate the characteristics of firms that make them more or less likely to integrate their activities in a foreign country. We draw on firm level data for Spanish manufacturing firms from the Survey on Business Strategies (ESEE), which enable us to identify whether their imports are intra-firm (related party) or at arm’s-length (non-related party). Our results show that candidates for vertical integration are the most productive firms and those that receive a large share of their inputs from headquarters. We also demonstrate that international experience and product differentiation favor foregin integration even after controlling for other characteristics of the firm.37 p.application/pdfengcc-by-nc-nd, (c) Pelegrín Solé et al., 2012http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/Deslocalització industrialIntegració verticalBusiness relocationVertical integrationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess