You can't. US firms report foreign (and sometimes offshore) income and profits separately on their books, but unless they explicitly state they are using offshore profits to invest in specific US assets in the commentary sections of their SEC filings, there's no way to track that flow of funds. There's no explicit required accounting heading for that information.
The BEA data gives the total direct foreign investment in US plants and equipment by industry, but doesn't specify how much of that amount is profit vs. say debt. However, you could compute the proportion of foreign debt by industry to foreign profits by industry and multiply that by that total investment figure to get a rough estimate of offshore profits invested in US P&E. Nomi -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 7:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Trade Question How could you identify the flow of funds within a corporation to know that question -- even if you had access to the books? On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 06:59:01PM -0400, Max B. Sawicky wrote: > Int'l accounts were never my cup of tea. Can > someone tell me how to answer this question > (pls keep it simple; I'm not writing a > dissertation on this) using the nat'l/int'l > BEA data: > > how much of profits of U.S. firms earned from > offshore operations are invested in plant and > equipment in the U.S. of A.? > > thanks. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
