This book, which promises to be influential, performs the worthwhile task of assessing existing United States policies affecting multinationals. The book contains much useful background on our present policies and offers original research in a number of areas, such as the relationship between United States exports or United States firms’ domestic market power, on the one hand, and foreign investment, on the other. Most importantly, it contains some rather specific suggestions for future policies. This review appraises these policy prescriptions, which can be summarized as follows: (i) discourage equity investment and encourage debt financing in natural resource projects; (2) repeal deferral for income of foreign subsidiaries, substitute a per-country limitation for the overall limitation on the foreign tax credit, extend investment credit and accelerated depreciation range allowances to foreign investment, and repeal advantages for Domestic International Sale Corporations (DISCs); (3) encourage split-off of foreign subsidiaries of domestic firms found to monopolize the United States market and extend the permissible scope of antitrust attack on intracorporate conspiracies; and (4) establish an “escape clause” to compensate those persons, firms, and communities negatively affected by foreign investment abroad or to halt entirely certain foreign investments adverse to United States interests.
