John Kenneth Galbraith and the Multinational Corporation

摘要

When theorists of the firm contemplate the multina-tional enterprise, generally speaking they draw upon a variety of existing theories, including monopoly economics, transaction costs, and other views. What is typically overlooked, however, is the fact that John Kenneth Galbraith, notably in his work The New Industrial State (1967) but also in a variety of other writings, advanced a distinctive and innovative contribution to the theory of the firm that predates and anticipates elements of these approaches. Moreover, this vision was subsequently extended to advance a distinctive view of the multinational corporation that is embedded in the recognition that international production and trade takes place in uncertain, historical time and is coordinated across national boundaries. All theorists of the multinational enterprise seemingly overlook this fact.