Research versus development: global cities and the location of MNCs’ cross-border R&D investments

Large, internationally connected cities are important hubs of innovative activity, yet research on the attractiveness of such ‘global’ cities for research and development (R&D) activities by multinational corporations (MNCs) is scarce. We posit that factors determining cities’ potential to attract R&D investments by MNCs differ depending on the type of R&D investments: research or development. We investigate the heterogeneous determinants of location choices for 1537 cross-border R&D investments by 633 MNCs in 55 global cities during the period 2003–12. The findings suggest that cities’ technological and university strengths are stronger attracting factors for research activities, while global cities’ market potential and intellectual property rights protection attract investments in development activities.