This article examines the impacts of research and development on the mode of multinational expansion (exports versus foreign sales) by forest products companies, and the effects of firms' international strategy on the level of research and development investments. A theoretical model of imperfect competition between international companies is derived and company-level data representing Finnish forest industries are used. The results indicate that the firms' own research and development investments helped, at least during the 1980s, their foreign expansion by favoring the firms' exports rather than foreign sales. External research and development investments by other companies were substitutes for a firm's own investment on research and development in the 1980s, but this effect seems to have disappeared toward the 1990s. There have not appeared to be any significant spillover effects from the research and development activities across the firms.

中文翻译：

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跨国公司的研发业务和海外扩张：来自林业微观数据的证据

本文探讨了林产品公司的研发对跨国扩张模式（出口与国外销售）的影响，以及公司的国际战略对研发投资水平的影响。推导了国际公司之间不完全竞争的理论模型，并使用了代表芬兰森林工业的公司级数据。结果表明，至少在 20 世纪 80 年代，公司自身的研发投资有利于公司的出口而不是国外销售，从而有助于其海外扩张。在 20 世纪 80 年代，其他公司的外部研发投资可以替代企业自身的研发投资，但这种效果似乎在 90 年代消失了。各公司的研发活动似乎没有产生任何重大的溢出效应。