Bilateral investment treaties and foreign direct investment: Evidence from emerging market firms

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) help developing countries attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from developed countries. However, whether BITs matter for emerging market firms’ (EMFs) FDI is unclear. This paper investigates how BITs affect EMFs’ FDI locations using conditional logit models with firm-level panel data from 2003 to 2015. The results show that BITs can help host countries attract FDI from emerging market countries. BITs work alongside good institutions to increase the attractiveness of FDI, irrespective of a host country being developed or not.     

The impact of tax incentives on foreign direct investment in China

Scholes and Wolfson 1989, Scholes and Wolfson 1992) argue that tax rules jointly influence investment decisions and organizational form. The present research uses Chinese data to test these assertions. Specifically, our study investigates whether (1) the creation of special tax incentive zones is an effective tax policy for China to induce new foreign direct investment (FDI) into specific regions, and (2) changes in the tax rules influence the particular form of foreign direct investment selected: equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises. Our results indicate that tax incentives are effective in attracting FDI to China, and moreover, influence the selection of a particular form of FDI. One limitation of our study is that we were unable to completely control for the correlated-omitted-variable problem.     

An empirical study of the impact of corporate taxation on the global allocation of foreign direct investment: a broad tax attractiveness index approach

The question of whether a country’s corporate tax regime has a significant influence on the level of foreign direct investment (FDI) into that country is an important consideration in the design of national tax policy. This is especially relevant today in view of the recent increase in the global mobility of capital and subsequent increase in the importance of FDI to nations’ economies. Although several prior quantitative studies have investigated the link between taxation and FDI, they have tended to be restricted in geographical scope and in their measure of taxation.This study constructs indices of “corporate tax attractiveness” for selected countries and then analyses the relationship between the indices and measures of the flow of FDI into those countries. The indices are constructed by obtaining evaluations from international investors and taxation experts on the various attributes of the tax systems of those selected countries. A significant positive relationship was found to exist between the indices and measures of FDI inflows, and between individual tax system attributes and those inflows, thus adding support to the supposition that host country corporate taxation influences the size of FDI inflows.     

Taxation and Foreign Direct Investment: A Synthesis of Empirical Research

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the impact of company taxes on the allocation of foreign direct investment. We compare the outcomes of 25 empirical studies by computing the tax rate elasticity under a uniform definition. The median value of the tax rate elasticity in the literature is around –3.3 (i.e. a 1%-point reduction in the host-country tax rate raises foreign direct investment in that country by 3.3%). There exists substantial variation across studies, however. By performing a meta-analysis, the paper aims to explain this variation by the differences in characteristics of the underlying studies. Systematic differences between studies are found with respect to the type of foreign capital data used, and the type of tax rates adopted. We find no systematic differences in the responsiveness of investors from tax credit countries and tax exemption countries.     

Foreign direct investment and employment: host country experience

This study investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on employment creation and wages in Ghana. A simultaneous panel regression model is used in estimating the effect FDI has on employment and wages. The results of this study indicate that FDI has a statistically significant and positive effect on employment levels in Ghana, but has an insignificant effect on wages. FDI can greatly augment domestic efforts by creating more jobs in the economy. The results clearly demonstrate that FDI flows affect employment quantitatively, but not necessarily qualitatively. The study identifies other factors including, productivity, wages, sub-sector, and location as important in influencing employment levels. Also, productivity, labour union, firm size, sub-sector, and location are noted as significant in affecting wages in Ghana. The main value of this paper is in respect of the fact that it provides insight into the effects of FDI flow on employment from a host country perspective. The study recommends that FDI should be considered as an integral part of the Ghanaian economic policy in order to spur on economic growth.     

Host-country governance, tax treaties and US direct investment abroad

We investigate how the quality of the host-country governance and a bilateral US income tax treaty affect the rates of return that US companies require on their foreign direct investment (FDI). Using indexes of corruption and political instability, we find that poor governance causes the companies to require significantly higher rates of return. This lends support to earlier authors who have concluded that poor governance discourages both local investment and inward FDI. After accounting for the quality of host-country governance, however, no evidence could be found that an income tax treaty has any effect on the required rates of return.      

Convergence of accounting standards and foreign direct investment

Since the development of the eclectic paradigm by Dunning (1977, 1988, 1993), many studies have investigated different forms of location advantages that attract foreign direct investment (FDI). In this study, we consider accounting standards as a component of the institutional infrastructure of a location and hypothesize that the convergence of domestic and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) promotes FDI as it reduces information processing costs for foreign investors.² We also hypothesize that the effect of reduced information costs is stronger for partner countries whose accounting systems showed greater pre-convergence differences because they magnify the facilitating role of accounting standard convergence for FDI. Using bilateral FDI data from 30 OECD countries between 2000 and 2005, we find evidence generally consistent with these hypotheses.     

Accounting quality and information asymmetry of foreign direct investment firms

This study argues that the foreign direct investment firms mislead stakeholders and are associated with greater information asymmetry due to the raised agency problem. Results show that both earnings management and idiosyncratic volatility increase with foreign investment. Managerial ownership mitigates such inefficiency.     

The impact of nonprofit taxes on foreign direct investment: evidence from German multinationals

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of taxes other than profit taxes on both investment and location decisions of multinationals. Besides effects of corporate income taxes, the results confirm significant adverse effects of nonprofit taxes such as property taxes, sales taxes and VAT, and import duties on the level of FDI. However, once country-specific fixed effects are included, most of the effects of nonprofit taxes vanish. This is supported by the analysis of location decisions, where taxes other than corporate income taxes are not found to exert any adverse effects on the location probability in a setting with country-specific fixed effects.      

Anti-tax-avoidance provisions and the size of foreign direct investment

The paper sets up a model of a multinational firm in which the home country uses a credit with deferral or an exemption system and the host country is a low-tax jurisdiction. In this model the impact of anti-tax-avoidance provisions on the size and the growth of the foreign subsidiary is analyzed. Two main results emerge. First, anti-tax-avoidance provisions may lower the cost of capital of foreign firms quite significantly. Second, in contrast to previous models with limited financial possibilities the paper shows that a tax induced growth dynamics is absent if there are some important tax constellations.     

Federalism, weak institutions and the competition for foreign direct investment

This paper shows that vertical fiscal inefficiencies impede federally organized countries in successfully attracting foreign direct investment. Such countries, particularly if characterized by weak institutions, are disadvantaged in the process of bidding for firms and in their ability to commit to a low overall tax burden. The interaction of these problems deteriorates their competitive position vis-à-vis unitary states in the competition for foreign direct investment. These theoretical considerations are in line with recent empirical evidence that suggests that the number of government layers of host countries has significant and sizeable negative effects on the amount of foreign direct investment inflows.      

Sectoral linkages of foreign direct investment firms to the Czech economy

Foreign direct investments (FDI) influence the industrial structure of the host economy through linkages to the domestic economy. Firms may use intermediate goods produced by either domestic or foreign firms, and sell their products to either domestic or foreign customers. The resulting change in the industrial structure of the indigenous economy is analysed in a panel regression for the case of the Czech Republic. The results show that linkages have a strong influence on the sectoral composition of the indigenous economy, supporting the development of indigenous manufacturing and labour-intensive industry.     

Analysis of foreign investment impact on the dynamics of national capitalization structure: A computational intelligence approach

Central and Eastern Europe countries are in the political and economic transitional process of merging with the European Union. How has foreign investment already transformed these countries’ economic sectors and how will it affect the national economies in terms of capitalization across economic sectors in the near future? Our prime consideration is portfolio investment impact on the dynamics of respective countries’ capitalization structure in terms of sectorial investment distribution. The proposed method rests on the artificial intelligence approach (neural network method), which is targeted to grasp non-linear dynamics of heterogeneous foreign investment impact on national capitalization structure.     

Religious freedom, religious diversity, and Japanese foreign direct investment

Research into the links between religion and foreign direct investment is scarce, partly because research on religion has not been the traditional domain of business and economics. Nevertheless, religion affects the economies, political structures, legal environments, and social behaviors of people around the world and is, therefore, an important element of the international business environments. Foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions are often made after an assessment of the international business environments. This article makes a singular contribution by focusing on the impact of religion – religious freedom and religious diversity – on the foreign direct investment of Japanese companies. We find that national income and religious diversity significantly influence Japanese decisions to invest.     

Foreign direct investment and trade: The case of Vietnam

By making use of a gravity model, this paper examines the impact of FDI on exports, imports and net export of Vietnam. The empirical analysis presented in this paper is based on a recently released panel dataset involving Vietnam's 19 major trading partners for the period 1990-2007. The paper also considers the impact of FDI on trade during three sub-periods: the pre-Asian financial crisis, the post-Asian financial crisis and during the Asian financial crisis period. The empirical analysis reveals that a complementary relationship exists between FDI and exports and FDI and imports. While the impact of FDI on net-exports is insignificant during the full sample period, a significant positive relationship exists between net-exports and FDI in the post-Asian financial crisis period.     

我国外商直接投资税收敏感性分析

采用现状分析、理论论证和实证分析等经济分析方法,对税收政策对外商投资的影响作用进行分析,可得出以下结论:税收优惠对吸引外商直接投资有促进作用,但其影响作用并不显著。我国应正确对待税收优惠的作用地位,并全面考虑影响优惠政策的因素,采用更为有效的税收优惠工具,有的放矢地运用税收优惠政策。     

The impact of IFRS adoption on foreign direct investment

By analyzing a panel data set of over 1300 observations covering 124 countries, for the period from 1996 through 2009, this paper tests the basic argument that the adoption of International Foreign Reporting Standards (IFRSs) by a country results in increased foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. Analysis of the data using an ordinary least squares (OLSs) approach provides evidence that adoption of IFRS leads to increased FDI inflows. The analysis indicates, however, that the overall increase in FDI inflows from IFRS adoption is due to the increase in FDI inflows by countries with developing, as opposed to developed, economies. A difference-in-difference test confirms these findings. A key potential driver for IFRS adoption by countries with developing economies is the desire to receive financial aid from the World Bank. This factor is explicitly taken into account using a two-stage instrumental variable (IV) model. The results using the IV model provide strong confirmation of the OLS results.     

Do tax sparing agreements contribute to the attraction of FDI in developing countries?

Measuring the effects of taxation on FDI in developing countries requires consideration of the tax sparing provision. This provision signed between developed and developing countries protects host country fiscal incentives for FDI. This paper estimates the impact of tax sparing provisions on Japanese outbound FDI between 1989 and 2000. We find evidence that the tax sparing provision influences positively the location of Japanese FDI, even after having taken into account reversal causality. JEL Classification F23 · H25 · H32 We Thank Michael Devereux, Edward Graham, Robert Lipsey, David Margolis, Claudia Rivas, Deborah Swenson, anonymous referees and seminar participants at the Franco-Korean conference in Seoul, and at the Western Economic Association conference in Vancouver for helpful discussions.     

The impact of tax enforcement on corporate investment efficiency: evidence from the tax administration information system

Information technology is essential in tax enforcement. This study found that stronger tax enforcement after the tax administration information system reform improved corporate investment efficiency by reducing excessive investment expenditures. The effect is more significant under higher local government fiscal pressure, poorer external information environments, weaker external corporate governance, and stronger tax avoidance motivation. The main mechanism is based on the quality of the accounting information. This study enriches the literature on the economic consequences of tax enforcement and adds investment efficiency as an influential factor, which provides implications for international governments to use information technology to strengthen tax enforcement.