We study how non-financial multinational companies propagate economic declines from their subsidiaries located in countries experiencing an economic downturn to subsidiaries in countries not experiencing one. We find that investment is 18% lower in subsidiaries of these parents relative to the same-industry, same-country subsidiaries of parents that are headquartered in the same parent country but do not have a subsidiary in a country experiencing an economic downturn. The employment growth rate in the affected subsidiaries is zero or negative while it is 1.4% in the subsidiaries of unaffected parents. The aggregate industry-level sales and employment are also negatively impacted in the countries of the affected subsidiaries.

我们研究了非金融跨国公司如何将经济衰退从其位于经历经济衰退国家的子公司传播到未经历经济衰退国家的子公司。我们发现，与总部位于同一母国但在经济衰退国家没有子公司的母公司的同行业、同一国家子公司相比，这些母公司的子公司的投资要低 18%。受影响子公司的就业增长率为零或负数，而未受影响母公司的子公司的就业增长率为1.4%。受影响子公司所在国家的总行业销售和就业也受到负面影响。