FDI and environmental regulation: pollution haven or a race to the top?

Increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) flows accompanied with globalization have raised the concern of a “race to the bottom” phenomenon in environmental protection. This is because footloose investors of “dirty” industries tend to relocate to “pollution havens” of the developing world. However when pollutant is transboundary (as in the case of greenhouse gases), the source country’s incentive to relocate and the recipient country’s willingness to host such industries are not straightforward. This article studies the relationship between FDI and environmental regulation using a North–South market share game model in a two-country setting, when pollution is transboundary. Contrary to the pollution haven hypothesis, our model shows that if market sizes of the two countries are small, FDI will raise the emission standard of the host country, resulting in a “race-to-the-top” phenomenon; but if market sizes are large enough, FDI will not change the emission standard of the South (from its laxest form), a finding that is consistent with the “regulatory chill” argument. Equilibrium FDI is contingent on the fixed cost of FDI, as the traditional proximity–concentration tradeoff theory predicts.     

Foreign Direct Investment, Human Capital and Environmental Pollution in China

By using provincial socioeconomic and environmental data, this paper examines the relationship between human capital, FDI and pollution emissions in China. The result shows the impact of FDI on pollution emission is highly dependent on the level of human capital. FDI is negatively associated with pollution emissions in provinces with the higher levels of human capital, whereas FDI is positively related to pollution emissions in provinces with the lower levels of human capital. This suggests that pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) holds only in those provinces with low human capital. This study also finds that the sign of FDI’s effect on each pollutant’ emission requires the different threshold level of human capital, which may help to reconcile the current conflicting PHH empirical evidences partially.     

Corporate Expenditure on Environmental Protection

We examine the determinants of firm’s current environmental expenditure and firm’s capital investment in equipment for pollution control in Irish manufacturing industries using a Heckman selection model. The main determinants for the two types of expenditure are similar: larger, exporting and energy-intensive firms are more likely to spend. Being subject to environmental regulation also has an effect. Once the decision to commit resources has been taken, larger, older, foreign-owned, exporting and energy-intensive firms incur higher environmental expenditure. For the amount of capital investment only firm size and age play a role. This suggests that the economic and regulatory incentives in place are such that it is the largest and most polluting firms that do most to reduce pollution.     

Agglomeration Effects in Foreign Direct Investment and the Pollution Haven Hypothesis

Does environmental regulation impair international competitiveness of pollution-intensive industries to the extent that they relocate to countries with less stringent regulation, turning those countries into “pollution havens”? We test this hypothesis using panel data on outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows of various industries in the German manufacturing sector and account for several econometric issues that have been ignored in previous studies. Most importantly, we demonstrate that externalities associated with FDI agglomeration can bias estimates away from finding a pollution haven effect if omitted from the analysis. We include the stock of inward FDI as a proxy for agglomeration and employ a GMM estimator to control for endogenous time-varying determinants of FDI flows. Furthermore, we propose a difference estimator based on the least polluting industry to break the possible correlation between environmental regulatory stringency and unobservable attributes of FDI recipients in the cross-section. When accounting for these issues we find robust evidence of a pollution haven effect for the chemical industry.     

Capital endowment, credit constraint and FDI: Analysis based on heterogeneous firms

To examine the impact of capital endowment and credit constraint on firms’ FDI decisions, we build a model of investment portfolio based on heterogeneous firms setup. We find that financial factors matter for firms’ internationalization. More capital endowment or less credit constraint lowers cutoff productivity for firms to do FDI.     

FDI对中国环境影响的实证研究——基于省际面板数据的分析

随着各国贸易与投资规模的扩大和环境污染的加剧,外商直接投资引入量和东道国环境的关系问题日益获得人们的重视,逐渐成为国际社会关注的焦点问题。本文主要研究FDI对我国环境污染的影响效果,通过利用连续16年的省际面板数据分区域建立实证模型,分析两者之间的关系。研究结果表明,FDI与我国各个经济区域的环境污染状况关系密切,而影响方向、程度却各不相同。     

FDI、人均收入与环境效应

本文利用时间序列数据对FDI的环境效应进行了整体分析,利用省际面板数据对FDI、人均收入和环境污染进行了区域分析。结果表明:FDI对环境产生了负的规模效应、负的结构效应和正的技术效应,但FDI对区域间的环境污染程度则有不同表现——东部地区污染程度加重,中部和西部则相反。而且随着人均收入的提高,我国整体上环境污染程度趋于好转。对此本文提出了要提高引资质量和引资标准,调整FDI投向,加强环境管制,转变政府引资思路的政策建议。     

Home country employment and foreign direct investment: evidence from the Italian case

The present paper provides further insights on the relationshipbetween home country employment and foreign direct investment(FDI) undertaken by national firms. The unit of analysis iseach ensemble of firms operating in the same industrial sectorand localised in the same geographical region. That allows usto capture both direct and indirect effects of foreign productionon the parent's environment, which arise through the generationof linkages and externalities. Empirical evidence has been providedwith reference to the Italian case in the decade 1985–95.Results suggest that the impact of outward FDI on the labourintensity of domestic production is negative in the case ofvertical investment undertaken—especially by smaller firms—inless developed countries, and positive for horizontal and market-seekinginvestments in advanced countries.     

加工贸易、FDI对环境污染的影响分析——基于VECM模型的实证分析

本文基于1983年～2008年我国加工贸易出口额、FDI（实际使用的外商直接投资额）和环境污染的数据,通过建立VECM模型以及进行Granger因果关系检验研究加工贸易、FDI对环境污染的影响。结果表明：从长期看FDI的流入能够在一定程度上减轻我国的环境压力,短期两者的因果关系不明显;而无论长期还是短期,加工贸易都在相当程度上恶化了我国的环境。     

Environmental Regulation Induced Foreign Direct Investment

The last decade has witnessed a renewed interest in the relationship between environmental regulations and international capital flows. However, empirical studies have so far failed to find conclusive evidence for this so-called pollution haven or race to the bottom effect where foreign direct investment (FDI) is assumed to be attracted to low regulation countries, regions or states. In this paper we present a simple theoretical framework to demonstrate that greater stringency in environmental standards can lead to a strategic increase in capital inflows which we refer to as environmental regulation induced FDI. Our result reveals a possible explanation for the mixed results in the empirical literature and provides an illustration of the conditions under which environmental regulations in the host country can affect the location decision of foreign firms.     

The directions of FDI and the self-intensifying expectations of the exchange rate and the effectiveness of sterilized intervention

In this paper, we develop the Renminbi’s dynamic model to analyze the relationship between the flow directions of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the exchange rate’s expectations on the basis of distinguishing the real interest rate from the desired interest rate. We find that the exchange rate expectation has a self-intensifying mechanism, which could have a reverse effect on the country’s macroeconomic stabilization. We discuss the issue on how expectation impacts the macro economy and then analyze the conditions of successful intervention, which is helpful for policy management. __________ Translated from the The Journal of World Economy (世界经济), 2005, (7) (in Chinese)     

Endogenous Pollution Havens: Does FDI Influence Environmental Regulations?*

We suggest a novel perspective on the relationship between the stringency of environmental policies and foreign direct investment (FDI). We develop a political economy model with imperfect product market competition where local and foreign firms jointly lobby the local government for a favorable pollution tax. FDI is found to affect environmental policy, and the effect is conditional on the local government's degree of corruptibility. If the degree of corruptibility is sufficiently high (low), FDI leads to less (more) stringent environmental policy, and FDI thus contributes to (mitigates) the creation of a pollution haven. Our empirical results using panel data from 33 countries support the predictions of the model.     

FDI, domestic capital and economic growth: Evidence from panel data at China’s provincial level

Based on panel data at the provincial level in China, this paper found that direct effects foreign direct investment (FDI) had on economic growth were of insignificance. However, through improving technical efficiency and “crowding” in domestic investment, FDI produced positive effects on China’s economy. The state sector still played a major part in the total fixed investment, therefore, direct effects on growth were significant. Although private sector was increasingly important for the whole economy, it had no direct influences on economic growth. Meanwhile, neither the state sector nor private sector made contribution to the improvement on technical efficiency. __________ Translated from Shijie Jingji Wenhui 世界经济文汇 (World Economic Papers), 2006, (4): 27–43     

Location choice under trade and environmental policies

In this paper, we use a game theoretic model to analyze the trade-off between the attractiveness of FDI and the environmental damage caused by production under asymmetric information. In the first stage, the domestic developing country reveals the level of import tariff and pollution tax under information uncertainty about the environmental damage that the foreign firm can cause. The foreign firm from a developed country decides where to locate afterwards with complete information about its own damage. Results show that the developing country can be better off encouraging FDI if and only if the marginal damage of pollution is sufficiently low. The optimal level of pollution taxes attracting FDI is higher than the marginal damage of pollution. However, the optimal pollution tax without FDI can be lower than the marginal damage of pollution with sufficiently high demand in the developing country.     

Product Lifetime: A Determinant of Entry Decision by Multinational Firms

Existing literature on the role of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection has painted an ambiguous picture about the size of the effects of stronger IPR on the choice of the multinational firm’s mode of entry into foreign market. Some empirical studies suggest that improving IPR in recipient countries will have higher effect on licensing, while others found larger effect on foreign direct investment (FDI). The available indices of protection only measure country-wide characteristics and do not pick inter-industry variation, while the data show significant differences in losses of US multinationals by industry. In this paper, we introduce and empirically estimate a new dimension to multinational firm’s decision to enter a foreign market—a parameter that reflects the length of positive profits that the firm can earn in various industries. We dub the estimated parameter a perceived time of rent extraction. The introduction of the time parameter allows us to differentiate the effects of stronger IPR on the entry modes in different industries and reconcile the ambiguity results in the literature. Particularly, strengthening IPR has higher impact on FDI in industries with shorter rent extraction time, while licensing is affected more than FDI in industries with longer rent extraction time.     

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。     

中国经济发展的环境效应分析——基于广义脉冲响应函数的实证检验

文章在测度我国1986-2007年环境污染综合指数的基础上,采用基于VEC模型的广义脉冲响应函数分析方法,探索产业结构、环境政策、城市化水平与外商直接投资4个因素的变动对我国环境污染综合指数的影响机理及其在时序维度上的动态特征。结果表明:城市化水平的提升和外商直接投资额的增加加剧了我国的环境污染综合指数的上升,而第三产业比重的提升和环境政策的实施,则对降低我国环境污染综合指数具有积极意义,且这4种作用都具有持续性特征。     

外商直接投资与环境库兹涅茨曲线

论文选取1992～2002年中国29个省市外商直接投资（FDI）、经济和环境相关数据，从定性和定量描述的角度探讨了FDI对我国环境库兹涅茨曲线（ECK）的影响。通过研究发现FDI与水污染物排放之间呈现出显著的正相关关系。不可否认，在我国接受经济全球化影响的过程中，由于部分地区急于吸引外资，加之我国环境管理体系的不完善，在某些方面，外商直接投资对我国环境造成了一定的负面影响。     

Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Taxes

Abstract. This paper studies the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on environmental policy stringency in a two-country model with trade costs, where FDI could be unilateral and bilateral and both governments address local pollution through environmental taxes. We show that FDI does not give rise to ecological dumping because the host country has an incentive to shift rents away from the source country toward the host country. Environmental policy strategies and welfare effects are studied under the assumption that parameter values support FDI to be profitable.     

FDI视角的环境库兹涅茨假说检验——基于中国中部八省的面板数据

环境库兹涅茨假说认为环境污染指标先随收入的提高而增加,而后随收入的提高而下降。本文利用1985-2008年中国中部八省大气污染、污水和固体废弃物（＂三废＂）等环境质量指标的面板数据,从FDI的视角对中国中部经济发展与环境污染关系进行了库兹涅茨假说检验。结果显示,中国中部八省没有严格意义上的倒U型环境库兹涅茨曲线,FDI对中部各省环境的影响存在差异,数据回归结果也没有支持污染天堂假说。