This study asks a basic question about foreign direct manufacturing investment (FDI) in the United States: are its location patterns really "foreign"? This question is motivated by the observation that rather than changing the geography of U.S. manufacturing, foreign manufacturers appear to be mimicking the location patterns of their domestically owned counterparts. A conditional logit procedure is used to analyze the reasons why foreign manufacturers have been attracted to nonmetropolitan counties of the South and Midwest. This analysis supports the case for a mimetic explanation of their location decisions.
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