When Do Firms Divest Foreign Operations?

The author thanks participants at the Harvard International Seminar Series, the International Business Department at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, the International Business Department at the Kogod School of Business at American University, and three anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions of this paper. The statistical analysis of firm-level data on U.S. multinational companies was conducted at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce, under arrangements that maintain legal confidentiality requirements. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect official positions of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The author sincerely thanks Ray Mataloni and Bill Zeile, both at the BEA, for their numerous responses to her questions about the BEA data. Finally, the author thanks the Mack Center at the Wharton School for funding this research.