Benefitting from Chinese FDI? An assessment of vertical linkages with Vietnamese manufacturing firms

Previous studies have suggested that foreign direct investment between emerging economies can benefit domestic firms more than investments from industrialised countries because of a lower technology gap and more appropriate technology being transferred. Empirical evidence for this is scarce. Addressing this gap, we investigate the impact of Chinese direct investment on local firms through vertical linkages in manufacturing industries of Vietnam. We find that the share of local sourcing of Chinese firms is similar to other foreign investors while their forward linkages are more extensive. Although this supports assertions about the benefits of investment by emerging market firms, the overall potential gains seem limited. This is due to little value-adding interaction with local firms, the local sourcing of low-technology goods, and the sparse provision of training and financial support.     

Financial Integration in East Asia: An Empirical Investigation

The central objective of this paper is to empirically evaluate the degree of linkages among East Asian equity and bond markets. Using data from the IMF’s Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS), we find that intra‐East Asian financial asset holdings of four East Asian countries – Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore – are larger than the levels predicted by the financial gravity model. However, our analysis suggests that this result is likely to be driven by intra‐regional trade linkages and reflect those linkages. Therefore, the salient implication for regional policymakers is that they should continue to promote intra‐regional financial integration. This paper also aims to analyse the impact of three different types of country‐specific risks – political, economic and financial risks – on investment from the four countries. This analysis yields a clear positive relationship between destination‐country risk, in particular political risk, and capital inflows.     

Don't stop with the one-stop shop: Foreign investment in a liberalizing third world

Developing countries around the world are liberalizing their trade and investment regimes. This paper, based on a multiyear, multicountry study, assesses the likely impact of these new trade and investment policies on foreign investment projects. It points to the divergence between rhetoric and reality that often characterizes the new investment policies and institutions. Indeed, the study suggests that, for many foreign investors, changes in trade policy are likely to be more significant than changes in investment policy. The paper provides recommendations to investors on how to take advantage of the new policies they are likely to encounter in developing countries. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

发达国家对发展中国家的新直接投资

发达国家投资厂商对发展中国家的直接投资已发生了很大变化,传统直接投资以投资者持有足够股权对投资项目保持有效控制的活动方式,新直接投资是以其他方式不同程度地参与控制,或只参与收益分享而不参与控制。新直接投资是由传统直接投资、间接融资、纯国际贸易相结合而形成的国际经济活动,反映了投资的实质性特征。     

To What Extent Can Foreign Direct Investment Help Achieve International Development Goals?

For FDI to help alleviate absolute poverty and stimulate economic growth in developing countries, two conditions have to be met. First, developing countries need to be attractive to foreign investors. Second, the host‐country environment in which foreign investors operate must be conducive to favourable FDI effects with regard to overall investment, economic spillovers and income growth. This paper argues that it is more difficult to benefit from FDI than to attract FDI. The widely perceived concentration of FDI in few developing countries tends to obscure that, in relative terms, various small and poor countries are fairly attractive to FDI. Yet, the mobilisation of domestic resources remains by far, more important than attracting FDI for financing investment and stimulating economic growth. Furthermore, high inward FDI is no guarantee for poverty alleviation and positive growth effects. In particular, the empirical evidence suggests that host‐country conditions typically prevailing in poor countries, including weak institutions and an insufficient endowment of complementary factors of production, constrain the growth‐enhancing and poverty‐alleviating effects of FDI. The crux is that creating an environment in which FDI may deliver social returns will take considerable time exactly where development needs are most pressing.     

Resource-based FDI and expropriation in developing economies

Globally, foreign direct investment (FDI) assets are expropriated more in resource extraction industries compared to other sectors. Despite the higher apparent risk of expropriation in resources, countries more likely to expropriate also have a larger share of FDI in the resource sector. An incomplete markets model of FDI is developed to account for this puzzle. The type of government regime is stochastic, with low penalty regimes facing a relatively low, exogenous cost of expropriating FDI, and country risk is measured by the variation in these costs across different regimes. The key innovation of the model is that the government, before the regime type is known, is able to charge different prices to domestic and foreign investors for mineral rights. Granting cheap access increases FDI and reduces the country's share of resource rents, increasing the temptation to expropriate in a relatively low penalty regime. In very high-risk countries, subsidizing resource FDI increases the total value of output by raising investment, and the net gains from expropriating in a low penalty regime outweigh the rents foregone under a high penalty one. However, a stochastic resource output price results in relatively low-risk countries restricting FDI inflows to the resource sector instead — “windfall profits” in this sector raise incentives to expropriate when prices are high, yet minimization of the ex ante risk of expropriation is preferred owing to the relatively high penalty for expropriating. These results imply a higher average share of resource-based FDI in countries most likely to expropriate, while resources account for a high share of expropriated assets compared to the sector's global share of FDI. We show that the model is able to reconcile observed patterns of foreign investment and expropriation for a sample of 38 developing and emerging economies.     

Local integration and co‐evolution of internationalizing Chinese firms

This study investigates the integration of internationalizing Chinese firms into local host markets. We explore the market‐driven investment of a new wave of Chinese private and local state‐owned firms in Australia since 2012, which has replaced the initial large‐scale investment in resources by central state‐owned enterprises. Using an in‐depth analysis of nine Chinese firms operating in various sectors of the Australian market, we argue that market integration, adaptation, and bilateral institution‐building through co‐evolution and empowerment of local subsidiaries of Chinese multinational enterprises results in entrepreneurial autonomy and characterizes a new generation of Chinese investors. We propose that Chinese multinational subsidiaries have transferred domestic practices to the Australian market and have reconfigured domestic and host market resources to gain a competitive advantage in their original investment industry and new industries. Our study advances middle‐range theory building and provides a practical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese investors, their potential to disrupt local markets, and their responsiveness to market‐oriented institutional guidance. The results of this study suggest that the bilateral institution‐building and resource reconfiguration capabilities of Chinese enterprises can be transferred to other developed and developing markets, including Belt and Road Initiative countries.     

German investment in developing countries

The Pros and Cons of direct investment promotion measures in overseas countries have recently become the subject of fierce controversy in all industrialised countries, including the Federal Republic of Germany. Advocates and opponents of such measures, however, almost exclusively try to analyse the desirability and effects of such investments in the industrialised countries only, virtually disregarding the problem of direct investment in developing countries. The Department on Development Policies of the Hamburg Institute for International Economics has therefore recently begun to investigate the volume, the motivation, and the success of German investments in the “Third World”. The following report discusses the first results of this study.     

The globalisation–welfare state nexus: Evidence from Asia

How globalisation influences social expenditure has been examined for industrialised countries. Globalisation has often been shown to be positively associated with social expenditure in established industrialised countries, a finding that corroborates the compensation hypothesis. Scholars have focused on industrialised countries, because social expenditure is difficult to measure in developing countries. I use new data on social expenditure for Asian non‐OECD countries. Globalisation is measured by the new KOF Globalisation Index. My results do not suggest that globalisation influenced social expenditures in Asia. Neither do the results suggest that the nexus between globalisation and social expenditures varied across high‐income countries, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, and lower‐income Asian countries or across Asian regions. It is conceivable that Asian citizens did not demand increasing social support when globalisation proceeded rapidly because they enjoyed family and other private assistance. Asian countries also have weaker tax and labour market institutions than OECD countries and have therefore more difficulties in increasing social expenditure.     

The Relation between Physical and Risk‐neutral Cumulants

Variance swaps are natural instruments for investors taking directional bets on volatility and are often used for portfolio protection. The empirical observation on skewness research suggests that derivative professionals may also desire to hedge beyond volatility risk and there exists the need to hedge higher‐moment market risks, such as skewness and kurtosis risks. We study two derivative contracts – skewness swap and kurtosis swap – which trade the forward realized third and fourth cumulants. Using S&P 500 index options data from 1996 to 2005, we document the returns of these swap contracts, i.e., skewness risk premium and kurtosis risk premium. We find that the both skewness and kurtosis risk premiums are significantly negative.     

The new protectionism and the Third World

Although there is general agreement on the fact that the new protectionism of the industrialised countries is damaging to developing countries, the majority of the latter show hardly any interest in a return to the classical GATT system. Prof. Körner provides an explanation for this apparently paradoxical attitude on which be bases his case for a reform of the existing system of international trade.     

The transfer of technology to developing countries

Although both the industrialised countries and the developing countries have an interest in the transfer of technology, there is a considerable amount of disagreement as to how the gains from the transfer should be apportioned. Professor Hoffmann offers a theoretical analysis of the mechanisms involved in technology transfer and in the determination of the transfer's price, and makes some suggestions as to the policies to be followed by the countries involved.     

Direction of outward FDI of EMNEs: Evidence from the Indian pharmaceutical sector

This article seeks to add to the small but growing literature of emerging‐market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Using two linked large firm‐level databases, it seeks to explore the determinants of outward investment of Indian pharmaceutical companies, distinguishing between developed‐ versus developing‐country destinations. It specifically examines the impact of two firm‐level characteristics that embody “non‐OLI” [ownership, location, and internalization] firm‐specific capabilities of EMNEs. The finding of this study is that family firms are keen on investing in other developing countries but much less so in developed countries. However, international linkages in the form of foreign investors offset this. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Comparative Advantage and the Gains from Financial Trade: A Reappraisal

Emerging market crises have suggested that a national benefit‐cost assessment of external financial liberalisation could well prove unfavourable. This paper re‐examines the principle of comparative advantage in its application to financial trade to seek guidance on measures that might permit a fuller realisation of the potential benefits involved. Drawing a parallel with Balasubramanyam's work on the gains from FDI and international migration we distinguish between those arising in financial trade from the net transfer of capital, and those deriving from the contemporaneous exchange of financial claims or services of equivalent value. In the first interpretation a country's comparative advantage is manifested by its role in ‘intertemporal’ trade (as a borrower or lender). Our alternative emphasis is on the contractual risk‐return characteristics of the financial claims exchanged. This perspective is applied firstly to portfolio diversification gains arising from further international stock market integration. Secondly, price risk management for developing countries in international primary commodity trade is discussed. Both applications imply the need for significant institutional development but could realise approximately contemporaneous gains reminiscent both of those involved in merchandise trade and in the skills and product (or service) flows that Balasubramanyam has emphasised in relation to FDI and international migration.     

Who should sell stocks?

Never selling stocks is optimal for investors with a long horizon and a realistic range of preference and market parameters, if relative risk aversion, investment opportunities, proportional transaction costs, and dividend yields are constant. Such investors should buy stocks when their portfolio weight is too low and otherwise hold them, letting dividends rebalance to cash over time rather than selling. With capital gains taxes, this policy outperforms both static buy‐and‐hold and dynamic rebalancing strategies that account for transaction costs. Selling stocks becomes optimal if either their target weight is low or intermediate consumption is substantial.     

创业投资中投资者自我保护机制

由于创业投资的高风险性 ,特别是因委托代理问题而导致的逆向选择风险和道德风险 ,尤其需要投资者加强自我保护 ,建立有效的投资者自我保护机制。以美国等发达市场经济国家的经验为基础 ,分析了创业投资中的投资者自我保护机制的内容。创业投资中的投资者自我保护机制主要包括 :对投资组织人及投资组织形式的选择 ;多阶段决策程序 ;专业投资、组合投资、联合投资与分期投资 ;复合投资工具的使用 ;对创业企业管理的监督与干预 ;灵活的退出机制等内容。     

The role of multinationals in economic development: The benefits of FDI

During her five years at the World Bank, Harrison initiated four studies involving multinational enterprises in four developing countries: Ivory Coast, Mexico, Morocco and Venezuela. These studies measure the role of multinational enterprises in promoting technology transfer; test whether multinationals push up wages for local workers; and analyze the validity of the “pollution haven hypothesis,” which states that foreign investors flock to developing countries to take advantage of lax environmental standards. Harrison finds no evidence of pollution havens and shows that multinationals raise wages for local workers. However, she finds that technology transfer has generally been limited to the joint ventures who receive foreign equity participation.     

Endogenous international joint ventures and the environment

This paper examines the welfare effects of emission taxes under a choice between an international joint venture (JV) and a full-ownership FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) by parent firms from a developed country (the North) and a developing country (the South), as well as their location and share decisions. If the South has a poor abatement technology, its best policy is to impose a relatively high emission tax to attract a full-ownership FDI. If it has a good abatement technology, the best policy is to impose a relatively low emission tax to attract the JV. Furthermore, deregulation of foreign ownership of the JV improves the quality of the environment.     

国际碳贸易价格波动对可再生能源投资的影响机制——基于实物期权理论的分析

有效利用可再生能源是促进节能减排实现绿色循环经济的重要手段。目前,可再生能源技术成本仍高于传统能源技术,因而需要获得额外的经济激励以增加其投资。《京都议定书》所建立的国际碳贸易体系是支持发展中国家实现碳减排的重要机制,但该贸易体系发展前景不明确,这将深刻影响我国可再生能源投资。本文分析和揭示了国际碳贸易体系的不确定性对可再生能源投资决策的影响,在此基础上提出了分别存在于可再生能源项目前期规划阶段和项目建设阶段的增长期权和延迟期权;通过构建两阶段期权模型研究国际碳价格波动下企业延迟投资的灵活性,并量化确定可再生能源项目投资期权价值,采用Monte-Carlo仿真分析法进一步验证模型,推导得出国际碳价格波动对可再生能源项目投资的作用机制。     

非对称信息条件下风险投资者与多个风险投资家的委托——代理分析

风险投资者与多个风险投资家建立合同关系,多个风险投资家共同为该投资者经营一个风险投资项目,易导致搭便车行为。在连续支付模式下,引入有效的激励机制能够提高各风险投资家努力的积极性,提高项目的投资效率和成功率。通过对风险投资者与多个风险投资家之间委托-代理关系的进一步分析可知,在连续基金周期中,各风险投资家只有充分地发挥自己的努力水平,才能达到一个马尔科夫完美均衡(MPE)。