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One of the most fundamental economic policy choices a society makes is how to order its global economic relations. What models do states use to structure this multifaceted decision, and how do they choose among these alternatives? We combine data on trade policies, foreign investment, exchange rates, capital flows, and international treaties to discover states' strategies of global economic engagement. We identify five distinct strategies through dynamic clustering. We then examine the economic and political drivers of states' choices among these competing strategies, focusing on the tradeoffs between public and private goods activated by differing styles of openness. In particular, we uncover a model of high global integration favored by (party-based) nondemocracies that emphasizes sacrificing consumption for production and embraces the risk of tight integration with global markets. We also uncover a cautious model of partial globalization favored by (large) democracies. Decisions over global economic engagement are clustered and multidimensional: Uncovering this variety unlocks new findings about the nonlinear effects of democracy on foreign economic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization creates winners and losers, and recent research emphasizes that large corporations are among the biggest beneficiaries of trade while smaller firms may be harmed. How do these redistributive effects impact trade attitudes? Because a growing share of Americans hold highly unfavourable views of big corporations, we argue that the belief that large firms win from trade will provoke hostility towards trade and globalization. To test this theory, we show experimentally that informing people that large corporations benefit from trade makes them markedly more hostile towards trade compared to a treatment emphasizing that firms in exporting industries benefit. Using subgroup and mediation analysis, we find that anti-corporate sentiment drives this effect, particularly concern about corporations' power in society. Our findings illustrate how distributive consequences and attitudes towards the winners and losers from policy change interact to shape public opinion on economic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do multinational firms trapped in host markets suffering from political violence find security? Terrorism and conflict repel foreign investment and recent research has sought to understand heterogeneity across firms in their response to violence. When multinational firms are unable to move their investments in the face of violence, we argue that their home governments use diplomatic capacity and security and economic resources to secure protection from host governments. Multinational corporations from home markets with significant leverage over host markets are therefore less likely to curtail their operations or investments in the wake of violence. Examining dyadic data on foreign direct investment (FDI), we show that home market diplomatic missions, aid, and alliances substantially abate the negative effects of violence on FDI. Consistent with our argument, this effect is observed after violence begins and is not an artifact of host markets garnering security aid from great powers other than the home market. A strong diplomatic presence matched to both hard and soft power resources positively contributes to the defense of core foreign policy interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When do corporations stop ignoring or opposing climate action and start to go green? We focus on the role of corporate boards of directors, which shape firms' positions on internal and external issues of corporate governance and public policy. We argue that board decisions to engage constructively on climate issues are likely to be influenced by the choices and experiences of other firms. Learning, socialization, and competitive dynamics are especially important in highly salient and rapidly evolving policy areas, such as climate change. To test this theory, we construct the network of board memberships for US public corporations and uncover robust evidence that climate innovations diffuse among companies that share board members in common and among companies whose board members interact at separate boards. Understanding the unfolding dynamics of corporate climate action requires examining corporate boards and their social context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Left-wing opposition to globalization lives, among voters and interest groups, both labor and progressive. But have left-wing opponents of trade successfully cultivated representation? Using the US Congress as a case, I show that two distinct groups of Democrats vote in characteristically progressive and protectionist ways on trade bills. These groups, especially progressives, are rewarded with excess campaign contributions from publicly anti-trade groups. A dyadic research design shows that interest group/representative relationships degrade noticeably when members of Congress vote for trade bills that interest groups have opposed. While recent events have highlighted business interests and right-wing economic populism, left-wing opposition to globalization remains a vibrant third face of contemporary domestic contestation over trade that will be especially important where populists fade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms that offshore final production should oppose trade barriers "protecting" their own industry. This pits them against onshore firms, especially when comparative disadvantage is most pronounced, and so fundamentally alters trade policy coalitions. The US-China trade war's exclusion process, where US firms could request that tariffs not be applied to a product, provides a golden opportunity to test this contention. We show that coverage by a tariff in the trade war and firm characteristics associated with offshoring—size, multinationality, and heavy imports from China—interacted to generate firm requests for exclusion from the trade war's tariffs. This finding is robust to input-sourcing and fears of export retaliation as alternative explanations, and across multiple measures of firm size, tariff coverage, and exclusion requests. We therefore test a key piece of the firm-centered model of trade politics and show its value in interpreting the US-China trade war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populist, protectionist, and progressive opposition to globalization are renascent among voters and politicians, but which of these ideologies have successfully inspired interest group mobilization? To answer this question, we collect original data on thousands of groups' participation in highly organized coalitions opposed to US trade policy and globalization. Examining the types of groups that compose coalitions, variation in activation across issues, and coalitions' written statements, we find that their motivations are mainly progressive, focused on the environment, human rights, economic justice, and reducing corporate power. We also focus on progressives' labor union allies, showing that their participation in anti-trade coalitions is driven by both sincere progressive and classic protectionist motives. Thus, a progressive–labor alliance espousing mainly demands for fair trade, not plain protectionism, dominates public activism against US trade agreements. This interest group opposition has no match on the political right, suggesting that the recent efflorescence of populist anti-globalization may not last, even as progressive fair traders use their superior mobilization to endure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies recurrent patterns in the political activity of American corporations that support trade. These firms have made public coalitions a central element of their pro-trade activities, and their collective efforts vastly outstrip those of trade's corporate opponents. This superiority in organization is paired with dramatically greater volumes of lobbying and campaign contributions. I explain these striking divergences by integrating collective action theory into a firm-centred model of trade politics: the heavy concentration of gains from trade among a small number of firms makes both individual and collective political action easier for pro-trade firms than for producers opposed to trade. This explanation is supported in panel analysis of firms' participation in pro-trade coalitions, which shows that size, multinationality, and heterogeneity in global networks of production and sales drive participation in pro-trade groups. Globally engaged firms have supported trade by matching pro-trade preferences with highly organized political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which firms oppose action to fight climate change? Networks of input sourcing and sales to downstream customers ought to propagate and reinforce opposition to decarbonization beyond direct emitters of CO2. To test this claim, we build the largest data set of public political activity for and against climate action in the United States, revealing that the majority of corporate opposition to climate action comes from outside the highest‐emitting industries. We construct new measures of the carbon intensity of firms and show that policy exposure via carbon‐intensive inputs and sales to downstream emitters explains this large volume of opposition from non‐emitting industries. Sixty‐six percent of U.S. lobbying on climate policy has been conducted by an extended coalition of firms, associations, and other groups that have publicly opposed reducing carbon emissions. Public opposition to climate action by carbon‐connected industries is therefore broad‐based, highly organized, and matched with extensive lobbying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what circumstances does terrorism repel foreign investment? The negative effect of terrorism on foreign investment identified in current scholarship masks heterogeneity across host markets and industries. Foreign investment ought to react less to political violence when host markets match firms' input requirements, when firms lack viable alternative hosts, and when assets are immobile across markets. We model the endogenous codetermination of terror and investment to derive these comparative statics, highlighting empirical challenges in identifying the effects of terror on foreign direct investment. To overcome these obstacles, we use an instrumental variable estimator which exploits differences in the networks along which terror and investment spread. Using industry-level data on the activities of US multinationals, we test our model and conclude that foreign investors that find it hard to leave particular host markets are doubly penalized: their lack of outside options makes them tempting targets for terror. Our findings have implications for other forms of violent and nonviolent political tactics which affect multinationals and for understanding how foreign investment reacts to heightened risk in host markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who supports trade in the US Congress? We uncover the ideological space of trade voting, focusing on trade agreements and development policy as two fundamental cleavages around globalization. We then cluster members of Congress into coherent voting blocs, and identify the most pro-trade voting blocs in each Chamber. We find that these blocs: cross party lines; are ideologically heterogeneous; and are over-represented on the committees with jurisdiction over trade. We then examine two leading theories of Congressional voting – on constituency characteristics and campaign contributions – and find support for each using our learned voting blocs. Members of pro-trade blocs have defended their constituents' and contributors' interests by speaking out to confront the Trump administration's protectionism. We conclude that unsupervised learning methods provide a valuable tool for exploring the multifaceted and dynamic divisions which characterize current debates over global economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Services dominate the US economy and are increasingly traded across borders yet little is known about service firms' trade policy objectives or lobbying activities. We fill this gap by examining services' political engagement on trade policy as manifested through lobbying, public positions on trade, and reports issued by U.S. Industry Trade Advisory Committees. We document for the first time that service firms are highly active in the politics of US trade agreements and, compared to firms in goods-producing industries, are much less likely to disagree over trade. Instead, service firms are almost uniformly supportive of US trade agreements, which we explain by focusing on the stark US comparative advantage in services. Service firms are therefore a key constituency for deeper international economic cooperation, helping to explain the present era of global integration despite tough times for uncompetitive US manufacturing. We expect service producers to join the defense of global economic order against emergent populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We survey the literature on firms as primary actors in trade politics. In contrast with prevailing approaches, firm-centered models predict that trade internally divides industries and that larger firms are the strongest advocates for globalization. This new preference map alters extant predictions about the dynamics of interest group contestation over trade and suggests revised accounts for how political organization and institutions contribute to an open international order. We also explore the potential for new insights into the operation of the global trade regime, the politics of foreign investment, immigration and capital movements, and exchange rates. Poli-tical activities undertaken by firms are important areas for further research in international political economy: Their economic engagements directly affect the movement of goods, services, capital, and people across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade policy has become increasingly multidimensional. Current trade agreements not only address market access but also encompass rules and provisions related to flexibility of commitment, investment protection, and dispute settlement mechanisms. Yet, rigorous evidence about how interest groups evaluate each of these in relation to the others remains scarce. We develop a firm-level theoretical framework to explain how firms' international operations affect their preferences on different trade policy measures. We experimentally evaluate preferences over multiple policy dimensions using a conjoint analysis on firms in Costa Rica. Notably, for many types of firms, the standard trade policy measures of yesteryear—tariffs and subsidies—are no longer their most important concerns. Instead, the degree of firms' involvement in global value chains shapes their preferences. Multinational corporations care most about protection of their foreign investments. Those exporters who are not central to global supply networks most value strong dispute settlement procedures. Finally, we find that preferences over these policy dimensions are more likely to vary by firm than by industry, which calls into question the existing literature's focus on interindustry distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who testifies on US trade agreements before Congress and what do they say? We examine the content of Congressional testimony on US trade agreements, and the selection process which determines who testifies in the first place. We find that testimony is systematically tilted toward a sunny view of trade's positive economic effects, while import competition and offshoring are generally downplayed. We argue that trade's supporters strategically frame their motives for supporting trade agreements, and that pro‐trade committee chairs' decisions on who testifies further skew testimony away from the distributive consequences of globalization within the United States. Congressional hearings on trade agreements therefore represent a key site where the influence of dominant pro‐trade interests is both revealed and reinforced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual property rights are a key piece of the expanded trade agenda, and the United States has pushed hard to strengthen protections beyond WTO standards in its trade agreements. While agreement provisions governing intellectual property are commonly thought to be an important driver of corporate preferences over US trade policy, systematic empirical evidence for this proposition, especially in comparison to other determinants of trade policy, is generally lacking. To fill this void, this paper examines variation in reliance on intellectual property across US industries to explain attitudes and lobbying on US trade agreements. The effects of IP provisions on support for US trade agreements are politically substantial, though trade remains the primary determinant of preferences over trade agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) have become the most prevalent form of international trade liberalization in recent decades, even though it remains far from clear what their effects on economies and their key units, firms, are. This paper evaluates the distributional consequences of trade liberalization within industries differentiating two distinct aspects in which trade liberalization could result in higher trade flows: the intensive vs. the extensive margin of trade. In particular, we analyze whether trade liberalization leads to increased trade flows because either firms trade more volume in products they have already traded before (intensive margin) or because they start to trade products they have not traded previously (extensive margin), or both. We test these arguments for the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) and exporting firms based in Costa Rica for the time-period 2008-2014. The results of our study suggest that the effects of CAFTA-DR depend not only on whether we analyze the extensive versus the intensive margin of trade but also whether the product in question is homogenous or differentiated and whether the exporting firm under analysis is small or large. In particular, we find support for the theoretical expectation that firms exporting heterogeneous products, such as textiles, gain from trade agreements, such as CAFTA-DR, in that they can export more varieties of their products. Yet at the same time, they tend to lose at the intensive margin by a reduction in their trade volume while the opposite pattern occurs for firms exporting homogenous products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The firms that compose a typical American industry regularly part ways over trade policy, choosing to lobby or publicly comment on their own rather than collectively via their industry association. Emphasizing the importance of firm heterogeneity in global engagement, I consider the role of multinationalization and global sourcing in generating these disagreements. Each of these explanations for industrial fragmentation is supported with evidence on position-taking and lobbying from all US trade agreements since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as well as lobbying data on all trade policy issues. Variation in ability to benefit from globalization across firms, rather than the collective action problem or firm-specific trade protection, best explains firm-centric patterns of lobbying. These changed patterns of lobbying drive the content and scope of US trade agreements and have altered the trajectory of US trade politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does globalization provide an escape from discriminatory legal and social institutions for women-owned enterprises? We develop an original test of this proposition based on a model of firm heterogeneity with discriminatory costs. Discriminatory institutions raise barriers to entry and increase costs of production, allowing only the most productive women-owned firms to survive. If the costs of discrimination are lower in export markets, the average surviving woman-owned firm is more likely to export and exports a higher proportion of total sales. Using a cross-national data set of firms, we show that while there are significantly fewer women-owned enterprises in countries with discriminatory institutions, these businesses export at higher rates. Global markets therefore provide an important, albeit imperfect, alternative to markets with poor protections of women's rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors determine firms' attitudes toward trade policy? This paper considers producers' policy preferences and political behavior in light of two key patterns in modern international trade: industries that face import competition often have many exporters, and foreign sales are concentrated in the hands of a small number of "superstar" exporters. Using a new survey of Costa Rican firms matched to systematic firm-level data on export behavior, we find that firm features are generally more important predictors of attitudes toward trade liberalization than industry-wide comparative advantage. We also show that export intensity is strongly associated with interest and lobbying activity on trade policy. The largest exporters, who are the strongest supporters of global integration, dominate trade politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents systematic deviations from standard models of trade politics, each of which has the effect of undermining sustained efforts at coherent industrial opposition to trade. Industries have internal disagreements about liberalization, support for trade liberalization extends bilaterally across borders in the same industry, and comparative disadvantage industries feature convincing expressions of public support for liberalization. These surprising outcomes are explained by a model of trade politics that emphasizes three factors: firm heterogeneity in export performance, product differentiation, and reciprocal liberalization. The author uses a new data set of industry attitudes about fifteen US trade agreements to show that product differentiation is strongly correlated with these outcomes, even conditional on plausible alternatives. The author concludes that public position-taking and lobbying on trade politics have been fundamentally altered by the rise of product variety; trade's opponents and indifferents have been overwhelmed by pro-globalization firms breaking out to support trade on their own. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent focus on firms in international trade suggests two conjectures about preferences over trade policy - only the most productive firms should support freer trade, and industries can be internally divided over reciprocal liberalization. This paper clarifies the content and scope of these claims. The most productive firms are generally not the greatest beneficiaries from trade liberalization and may oppose further liberalization due to increased competition in export markets from compatriot firms. Exporting industries will feature no support for trade if foreign competition is too strong or barriers too unequal. The key analytic factor generating intra-industry division is product differentiation, both directly, by increasing export opportunities for less efficient firms, and by inducing home market effects wherein larger countries are more competitive. The implications of these findings for the distributional effects of liberalization and the study of trade politics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]