Taxi,Takeoff and Landing: Behavioural Patterns of Capital Flows to Emerging Markets

This paper analyses volatility, persistence, predictability, correlation, comovement (or contagion risk) and sudden stop (reversibility) of capital flows (foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign portfolio equity investment, long-term and short-term debt flows) using time series econometric techniques for 24 emerging economies over 1970–2014. This is informative on the pattern and relationship between capital inflows, with implications for accommodating macroeconomic policies in countries receiving inflows. The paper also addresses the predictions of conventional theory, that differences are associated with the maturity of the capital (long-term vs. short-term), with the information-based trade-off model of Goldstein and Razin [(2006). An information-based trade off between foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment. Journal of International Economics, 70(1), 271–295], that differences are associated with the structure of the capital (equity vs. debt). In line with the latter, equity flows (FDI and portfolio) are less volatile and persistent, more predictable and less susceptible to sudden stops than debt flows. Contrary to conventional theory, short-term flows are not more volatile, but there is evidence that correlations and risks of contagion are strong within all capital flow components.     

International Reserves and the Composition of Foreign Equity Investment

This paper studies the effect of central banks' international reserve hoardings on the composition of foreign equity investment. Specifically, it examines whether reserves affect the share of foreign portfolio equity investment (PEI) in total foreign equity investment, which includes both PEI and foreign direct investment (FDI). Foreign investors' decisions regarding the location and the type of equity capital investment might be influenced by a country's level of international reserves. In a simple theoretical model, it is shown that higher reserves, thanks to their ability to lower exchange rate risk, reduce the risk premium of PEI. Hence, higher reserves are expected to increase the inflow of PEI relative to FDI. This hypothesis is tested for a sample of 76 developing countries during the period 1980–2010 using different estimation methods, model specifications and data samples. The results suggest that higher levels of reserves are associated with a larger share of PEI relative to FDI. This result points to a collateral benefit of reserves that has been neglected so far. Reserves may contribute to develop domestic financial markets and facilitate domestic firms' access to foreign portfolio equity financing. In addition, this paper finds a strong negative effect of the global financial crisis beginning in 2008 on the share of PEI, which confirms the hypothesis that PEI is more crisis‐dependent than FDI.     

FOREIGN TAKEOVERS AND NEW INVESTMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

This study is unique in several respects. First, it reviews the characteristics of the top 10 industries targeted for foreign direct investment (FDI) activity in the United States between 1979 and 1987. It analyzes both overall FDI activity and new plant and expansion FDI activity. The study summarizes and tests alternative hypotheses regarding the determinants of FDI in the United States by all countries, by the United Kingdom, by the European Community, by Japan, and by Canada.
Large and growing product markets in an expanding economy have attracted FDI in the United States. Exchange rate movements have prompted opportunistic decisions to invest in U.S. production facilities. Investors' superior management skills appear to have prompted takeovers, while efforts to realize technological advantages of new physical capital and of relatively large operating plants have fostered plant and expansion investments.
Evidence exists that a desire to circumvent current—but not potential—trade restrictions has motivated foreign direct investment. FDI activities are not associated with concentrated or heavily unionized industries. Highly protected industries have attracted heavier equity FDI by Japan and heavier new plant FDI by all sources and Canada. No evidence exists that FDI in the United States by Japan or anyone else is targeted to undercut union-dominated firms or to arrest the spread of protectionist trade policies.     

FOREIGN TAKEOVERS AND NEW INVESTMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

This study is unique in several respects. First, it reviews the characteristics of the top 10 industries targeted for foreign direct investment (FDI) activity in the United States between 1979 and 1987. It analyzes both overall FDI activity and new plant and expansion FDI activity. The study summarizes and tests alternative hypotheses regarding the determinants of FDI in the United States by all countries, by the United Kingdom, by the European Community, by Japan, and by Canada.
Large and growing product markets in an expanding economy have attracted FDI in the United States. Exchange rate movements have prompted opportunistic decisions to invest in U.S. production facilities. Investors' superior management skills appear to have prompted takeovers, while efforts to realize technological advantages of new physical capital and of relatively large operating plants have fostered plant and expansion investments.
Evidence exists that a desire to circumvent current—but not potential—trade restrictions has motivated foreign direct investment. FDI activities are not associated with concentrated or heavily unionized industries. Highly protected industries have attracted heavier equity FDI by Japan and heavier new plant FDI by all sources and Canada. No evidence exists that FDI in the United States by Japan or anyone else is targeted to undercut union-dominated firms or to arrest the spread of protectionist trade policies.     

(NON‐)RESILIENCY OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES DURING THE 2007–2009 FINANCIAL CRISIS

We study the contraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in the United States during the recent financial crisis and show their unusual non‐resiliency, which depends in part on the global nature of the economic recession, but also on the increases in the cost of financing FDI in the economies in which the flows originate. To formally study the effects of external financial conditions on FDI in the United States, we exploit the three dimensions of a panel of US inward FDI flows organized by recipient US industries, source countries and years for the recorded flows. Changes in the cost of finance in the source countries have little or no effect on total inward flows (the sum of equity, debt and reinvested earnings) over the 2006–2010 period. However, US industries characterized by more financial vulnerability experience statistically significant variations in the debt and equity components of inward FDI flows in response to the changes in the cost of capital that occurred in the source countries during the crisis.     

China's Capital and ‘Hot’ Money Flows: An Empirical Investigation

We examine time‐series characteristics of China's capital flows during 1998–2014. More specifically, we employ Kalman filtering state‐space models to gauge the relative importance of permanent and transitory components in China's overall foreign direct investment (FDI), equity, bond, other investment and bank credit flows. Our results show that only in the case of FDI are both gross inflow and net flow dominated by a permanent stochastic level, suggesting that this source of capital is largely permanent. Incorporating covariates into the state‐space models, we find that a larger difference between onshore and offshore renminbi interest rates encourages capital inflows that are dominated by a transitory component. Greater global risk perception, proxied by S&P 500's volatility index, in contrast, discourages them. These covariates imply that capital control may not be effective in stemming volatile and speculative flows. Our results on bilateral capital flows between China and the USA also suggest that these flows are less persistent and more volatile during 1998–2014 than previously found based on 1988–1997 data. Our results bear important policy implications as China engages in further reforms in its domestic financial system and greater integration with the world financial system.     

When do Heuristics Matter in Global Capital Markets? The Case of the BRIC Acronym

ABSTRACT

Several recent publications have argued that the use of heuristics by financial investors can distort global capital flows, but scholars have paid little attention to the scope conditions that determine when heuristics become influential (and when they don’t). Building on work in economic sociology and behavioural finance we suggest that the degree to which investment heuristics can bias aggregate capital flows depends on the levels of uncertainty and self-referentiality that structure the environments under which investment decisions are being made. Applying these insights to the two principal global markets for corporate investment, we argue that the institutional structure of markets for short-term portfolio equity investments (PEI) is far more conducive to trigger the mimetic adoption of a specific heuristic than in markets for long-term foreign direct investments (FDI). To test this hypothesis, we leverage the high level of arbitrariness of the selection of Brazil, Russia, India and China into the BRIC acronym and empirically examine the impact of its remarkable rise to prominence among communities of financial investors in the mid-2000s on global capital flows to emerging economies. In line with the theoretical argument, we find robust evidence of a strong BRIC-bias in markets for PEI but not FDI.     

Taxes,institutions and foreign diversification opportunities

Investors can access foreign diversification opportunities through either foreign portfolio investment (FPI) or foreign direct investment (FDI). The worldwide tax regime employed by the US potentially distorts this choice by penalizing FDI, relative to FPI, in low-tax countries. On the other hand, weak investor protections in foreign countries may increase the value of control, creating an incentive to use FDI rather than FPI. By combining data on US outbound FPI and FDI, this paper analyzes whether the composition of US outbound capital flows reflects these incentives to bypass home and host country institutional regimes. The results suggest that the residual tax on US multinational firms' foreign earnings skews the composition of outbound capital flows — a 10% decrease in a foreign country's corporate tax rate increases US investors' equity FPI holdings by approximately 10%, controlling for effects on FDI. Investor protections also seem to shape portfolio choices, though these results are not robust when only within-country variation is employed.     

外商直接投资与环境规制关联机制的面板数据分析

利用Panel Data模型和时间序列模型对我国各地区外商直接投资与环境规制之间的关联机制作了实证分析。计量结果显示,环境规制确实对我国各个地区引进外资具有一定影响,而且这种影响呈现为负效应,“污染天堂假说”在一定程度上存在。当然,影响外商直接投资的决定因素主要是地理区位、经济发展水平和市场化进程,而劳动力成本也逐渐成为外商企业投资选址时考虑的因素。该研究结果具有重要的政策含义,即在中国各个地方政府在引进外资时,FDI对当地环境的负面影响需要逐渐引起各级地方政府在环境保护和政策制定过程中一定程度的关注。     

FDI and pollution havens: Evidence from the Norwegian manufacturing sector

This is an empirical study of the firm and country determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) and how it is affected by the stringency of environmental regulations in host countries. We employ disaggregated data on sales by Norwegian multinationals' affiliates from 1999 to 2005 that allow such affiliates to be categorized as either efficiency-seeking (vertical) or market-seeking (horizontal) FDI. While the environmental stringency of a host country and its enforcement are found to have no effect on the average investment, we find a significant negative effect on multinationals with vertical motives. Compared to those located in lenient countries, the efficiency-seeking affiliates in more environmentally regulated countries receive less investment from their parent companies in terms of (i) equity capital, (ii) capital stock, and (iii) assets. We further find that the total exports from affiliates to parent companies in Norway decrease with the level of enforced environmental stringency in the host countries.     

EU Enlargement and Inward FDI

The authors attempt to highlight the effects of the recent surge of FDI in the enlargement states on domestic investment and growth. A similar analysis is carried out for the EU-15 in order to ascertain whether this type of capital inflow has a differential impact in these two regions of the European Union. Empirical analysis, based on dynamic panel data models, suggests the existence of a positive contribution of FDI to greater domestic investment and economic growth in the new member states. The evidence obtained for the EU-15 old member countries confirms the FDI-growth nexus but does not suggest a positive impact of FDI on domestic investment, which would be consistent with these capital inflows being of a different nature for these more advanced economies.     

Venture Capital Funds, Financial Foreign Direct Investment and the Generation of Local Comparative Advantage in the Technology Sector in Israel

The rapid development of a new comparative advantage in thehi-tech sector in Israel in the period 1995–2005 providesan example of a new form of foreign direct investment (FDI).Unlike traditional FDI, this new form of international investment,that we dubbed financial foreign direct investment (FFDI), involvescapital flows from developed countries to small countries andto the emerging markets. The providers of this capital, definedin our study as "sector-specific capital", are financial andrisk intermediaries like venture capital funds and private equityfunds. Like multinational enterprises they transfer factorsof production across borders seeking to maximize their value.In doing so, they are a part of a process of generating newcomparative advantages. We focus on the case of Israel and showthat, due to the inherent asymmetry, it takes government actionto trigger the process of importing sector-specific capitalto Israel primarily from the US capital market, but once theprocess has begun, it has led to economic growth via reducingtangible and intangible trade costs, creating trust and thusgenerating competitive advantage for innovative technology firmsfrom Israel in the global markets.     

外商直接投资对中国经济影响分析

本文认为外商直接投资在中国的发展变化为：①发展有波折、但总体增长迅速；②由合作企业转向合资企业；③港台地区成为主要外资源地；④重点由服务业转向制造业；⑤主要集中于沿海地区。外商直接投资对中国经济的影响表现在：①资本总量和产出增长；②就业机会和劳力素质；③经济体制和管理体制：④技术引进；⑤市场扩大。     

FDI对我国产业结构升级影响的实证研究--基于面板随机系数模型的分析

改革开放以来,我国实施“以市场换技术”的外资战略,吸引外资以期换来国外的先进技术,促进产业结构升级。时至今日,此举是否真正换来了技术与产业结构的升级,值得我们细分研究。本文选取1999—2009年我国实际利用外资金额和行业增加值数据,通过采用面板随机系数模型分析了FDI对三次产业中各个细分行业的影响,从而得出FDI对我国产业结构升级的影响。研究得出如下结论：FDI对第一产业（即农林牧渔业）增加值有影响,但不够显著;FDI对第二产业中的制造业增加值的影响显著;FDI对第三产业内绝大多数行业增加值的影响显著。进而表明FDI的流入能有效推动产业结构升级和优化。     

FDI技术溢出对我国产业结构优化的影响——基于PVAR的分析

通过使用PVAR方法控制变量之间的内生性相互影响,分析检验FDI和研发投入对我国产业结构优化的影响。研究表明FDI对产业结构优化有显著地直接促进作用,此外通过促进国内研发投入,对产业结构优化也有间接促进作用。我国应根据各地经济发展不同状况制定不同的引资政策;同时增加研发投入,提高自主创新能力,以推进产业结构优化。     

Foreign Direct Investment,Economic Growth,and the Human Capital Threshold: Evidence from US States*

The United States has experienced a dramatic increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) in recent years. While foreign firms bring immediate benefits of high‐paying jobs, data limitations have prevented detailed study on FDI's long‐term effects on the states receiving it. By creating a new stock measure of FDI based on employment, we are able to capture these long‐term effects. Results demonstrate that FDI has a greater impact on per capita output growth than domestic investment for US states that meet a minimum human capital threshold. Ironically, the most active states in the recruitment of FDI tend to fall below this threshold.     

基于行业细分的我国制造业就业技能结构影响因素研究

技术进步对就业结构具有重要影响,其中技能偏态型技术进步对就业技能结构的影响尤为突出。本文选取2001—2010年间我国制造业29个细分行业的经济发展数据,分别考察了市场主导型FDI技术溢出、出口主导型FDI技术溢出、企业研发等因素对我国制造业就业技能结构的影响。研究结果表明,市场主导型FDI技术溢出仅对中低技术行业的就业技能结构具有负的影响,而出口主导型FDI带来的技术溢出对高技术行业和中低技术行业就业技能结构均有显著的正向作用。同时,企业规模的扩大和资本深化程度的增加将降低制造业高技术劳动力的占比,而企业自身研发投入的加强将明显提升制造业的就业技能结构。     

上市公司大股东控制下的资本配置行为研究——基于控制权收益视角的实证分析

基于控制权收益①驱动公司资本配置行为的理论阐释,结合我国上市公司特有的股权结构及其导致的控制权分配格局,文章从固定资产投资和股权投资两个方面,对形成我国上市公司控制权收益的资本配置行为进行了实证研究。研究结果表明:(1)控制权收益水平与资本配置规模显著正相关;(2)控制权收益水平越高,则增加等量控制权收益所需的资本配置规模就越大;(3)较固定资产投资而言,通过股权并购方式取得控制权收益的代价较低,但控制性股东占有被并购公司控制权收益的比例也较低;(4)上市公司资本配置行为在形成控制权收益的同时并没有通过提高公司业绩而增加控制权的共享收益,资本配置决策在很大程度上是大股东控制下的自利行为。     

The cost of capital for a multinational corporation

Evaluating foreign investments requires as inputs the costs of various sources of financing. A multinational firm could raise both debt and equity in capital markets located in different countries. This paper derives the required rates of return for a foreign investment from: domestic bonds, domestic equity, foreign bonds and foreign equity from both the domestic and foreign investors' perspectives. These required returns serve as the basic components in the calculation of the weighted cost of capital for a foreign project.     

外商直接投资对皖江城市带溢出效应的实证分析——基于皖江城市带面板数据研究

皖江城市带承接产业转移示范区作为迄今为止国务院批复的全国唯一一个以产业转移为主题的示范区,外资的大量进入是必然趋势。文章利用2006-2009年皖江城市带9个城市的面板数据和FGLS方法,对皖江城市带外商直接投资的产出效应和技术溢出效应进行了分析。研究表明皖江城市带FDI确实带来了产出的增长,但是对技术溢出的效应不显著。本土的自主研发投入无论是对产出效应还是对技术溢出效应都产生了积极的影响,是创新能力形成的主要因素。尽管人力资本制约了皖江城市带的技术进步,但是FDI与人力资本相结合,促进了皖江城市带的技术进步。皖江城市带FDI并没有通过本土的研发资本投入实现技术外溢效应。