Pollution havens,endogenous environmental policy,and foreign direct investment

In an increasingly integrated world economy, countries may have greater incentives to weaken environmental policy as disguised protection intended to give a competitive edge to local firms. This may generate pollution havens as firms relocate in response to different environmental policies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) weakens profit‐shifting policy considerations while increasing environmental damages but, at the same time, may provide external benefits. We derive conditions under which the FDI‐recipient country has an incentive to manipulate its environmental standard to prevent or attract FDI, potentially eliminating or creating pollution havens, in addition to examining the impact of FDI on the equilibrium state of the environment.     

Cost heterogeneity and the destination of Japanese foreign direct investment: A theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper first of all develops a Cournot oligopolistic model with heterogeneous firms to examine each firm's choice between export-oriented foreign direct investments (FDI) and FDI to serve the host-country market. It is shown that there exist a critical level of efficiency such that all firms below that level choose the former and those above it the latter. The hypothesis is tested using firm-level data on 118,300 Japanese firms covering the entire manufacturing sector. Multinomial logit estimates strongly support our theoretical findings.     

Exchange rate expectations and foreign direct investment flows

Exchange Rate Expectations and Foreign Direct Investment Flows. — Theories about exchange rate expectations are difficult to check empirically. We study FDI data to find indirect evidence on the formation of exchange rate expectations by foreign direct investors. Using panel data techniques on exchange rate movements and FDI flows from the United States to 20 OECD countries we find that skewness of devaluations has a robust positive impact on FDI flows while average devaluation and its volatility do not. We view this evidence as consistent with the hypothesis that relatively large exchange rate movements generate mean-reverting long-run expectations. This finding is consistent with survey-based evidence on exchange rate expectations.     

Japanese foreign direct investment and regional trade

We examine the relationship between Japanese FDI outflows, domestic and foreign fixed investment, and the exchange rate. The results indicate that aggregate FDI outflows have been driven by investment in Japan and the exchange rate, while the geographic distribution of such investment has been influenced by foreign economic conditions. We also find that FDI outflows have a temporary impact on exports but a permanent effect on imports. We find no evidence that behavior with respect to East Asia differs from that with respect to North America or Europe.     

Actors and factors in policy decisions on foreign direct investment

Governmental policies toward foreign investment are made complex by the variety of actors involved in or affected by the establishment of companies abroad and by the differences in decision factors employed by each. Governments of advanced and developing countries see the companies differently; as do various interests groups in each, and as do international organizations. These differences are further complicated by differences among sub-units in government and among types of international companies. Consequently, it is highly unlikely that governments will agree on the means of guiding or controlling international companies.     

外商对华投资新动向及汕头引进外商直接投资政策建议

<正> 中国加入WTO意味着第二轮更加彻底的全面大开放,跨国公司在中国投资战略由此进行了调整,提升了中国在全球布局中的战略地位,其对华直接投资出现新动向。作为中国最早对外开放的经济特区之一的汕头市应如何改善投资环境及调整引资策略,吸引更多的外商直接投资,更有效地利用外资以促进汕头经济的发展是一个值得深入探讨的问题。 一、外商在华投资新动向 1.投资规模继续扩大,新一轮投资热潮方兴未艾 2002年是我国加入WTO后的第一年,受加入世贸效应的带动,当年我国实     

An empirical assessment of the preconditions of Japanese manufacturing foreign direct investment in the United States

An Empirical Assessment of the Preconditions of Japanese Manufacturing Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. — This study undertook a multivariate regression analysis of Japanese foreign direct investment in the US (FDIUS), based on firm- and industry-specific data. Firm size was a positive and significant explanatory variable of firms’ completed transactions as well as their additions to investment value. Firms’ overall profit was a positive and significant indicator of firms’ addition to investment value, but not their completed transactions. Firms’ return on assets was generally a positive, albeit insignificant indicator of FDIUS. Three industry-specific variables (prior exports to the US, industry concentration, and technological intensity) were examined and all were positive but insignificant indicators of FDIUS.     

European exports and outward foreign direct investment: A dynamic panel data approach

European Exports and Outward Foreign Direct Investment: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach. — This paper implements a panel data approach for studying the determinants of and relationships between bilateral economic activities in terms of both trade and foreign direct investment between the EU member states. The familiar equation for testing the determinants of bilateral exports is reformulated to reflect recent theoretical work. It is specified as a dynamic panel data model designed to answer questions about their relationship according to changes in different exogenous determinants. Exports and stocks of outward FDI are found to be substitutes with respect to changes in transport costs and complements with respect to most of the other determinants.     

Characteristic of the new policy system of Chinese foreign direct investment

Under the background of the ＂Go Global＂ strategy, a new policy system of FDI （Foreign Direct Investment） is established. It is constituted of three parts including the FDI approving policy, the FDI encouraging policy and the FDI supervising and servicing policy. And the new policy system emphasizes on the efficiency of FDI investors instead of the government control.     

Country characteristics and foreign direct investment in China: A panel data analysis

Country Characteristics and Foreign Direct Investment in China: A Panel Data Analysis. — In this paper an error-components model is developed to analyze the economic, political and cultural determinants of both pledged and realized FDI in China which has recently become the second largest host country for FDI. The panel data cover the period 1983–1994 (1984–1994) and 22 (17) home countries/regions in the case of pledged (realized) FDI. The results indicate that bilateral trade, cultural differences, and relative real changes in market size, wage rates, and exchange rates are important determinants of pledged FDI, and that bilateral trade, relative changes in wage rates and exchange rates affect realized FDI.     

Trade effects of foreign direct investment: Evidence for Taiwan with four ASEAN countries

Trade Effects of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence for Taiwan with Four ASEAN Countries. —This paper examines the trade effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) between Taiwan and each of the following four ASEAN countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Regression results show that Taiwan's outward FDI has a significant positive effect on exports to and imports from the host country, whereas no such effects were consistently found for inward FDI from the same country.     

Vertical foreign direct investment: Evidence from Japanese and U.S. multinational enterprises

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries has increased since the 1990s, but there is mixed evidence of vertical FDI associated with factor-seeking motives. This paper estimates the vertical motive of offshore production by multinational enterprises (MNEs) by exploiting past schooling characteristics as instruments for skilled-labor abundance in a host country. Using panel data on Japanese and U.S. MNEs in the 1990s, I find that skilled-labor abundance has a significantly negative impact on sales of manufacturing foreign affiliate only for Japanese MNEs. The results suggest that vertical FDI activity was more prevalent in Japanese MNEs than U.S. MNEs. A plausible explanation is that Japanese MNEs might be more vertically integrated with their offshore production than U.S. MNEs. A difference in foreign outsourcing activities could generate the observed deviation between Japanese and U.S. MNEs.     

Global outsourcing or foreign direct investment: Why apple chose outsourcing for the iPod

A simple model is presented, where a firm's productivity is endogenized by its R&D investment. It shows that the most productive firms may prefer international outsourcing to foreign direct investment (FDI) in industries with a high innovation share. The high innovation share motivates the firms to economize on organizational cost in order to save resources for R&D investment, making outsourcing preferable to FDI because the former incurs a smaller organizational cost. This model helps explain why Apple Inc., belonging to the electronics industry, which has a particularly high innovation share, launched its innovative iPod through international outsourcing instead of FDI.     

Exchange rate movements and foreign direct investment (FDI): Japanese investment in Asia, 1987–2008

The paper estimates the impact of exchange rate movements on foreign direct investment (FDI). By using the panel data of Japanese FDI flows to nine dynamic Asian economies during 1987–2008, the paper finds that (i) FDI declined with a depreciation of the yen against host country currencies; (ii) it increased with exchange rate volatility; and (iii) it was little affected by the Asian financial crisis, especially when disguised financial flows were removed from the data. A novel result concerns the negative response of FDI to the third moment of monthly exchange rate changes: the volume of FDI was smaller when the distribution was positively skewed (i.e., when the yen was biased towards relatively large depreciation shocks). If skewness proxies for expected mean-reverting changes, this supports the idea that source country investors care about the future stream of revenues and returns denominated in their own currency. These results are robust, with other standard control variables having statistically significant coefficients with expected signs.     

Rules of origin and technology spillovers from foreign direct investment under international duopoly

Using a simple three-country model of international duopoly, this study analyzes the optimal choice of rules of origin (ROO) in a free trade area/agreement (FTA) when firms from outside the FTA must undertake foreign direct investment (FDI) in FTA countries and conduct part of their production process within the FTA to comply with the ROO. FDI causes spillovers of the superior production technology from a non-FTA firm to its competitor within the FTA, depending on how much of the production process is shifted to the FTA area. In this situation, this study predicts that as the degree of multilateral trade liberalization before formation of the FTA is higher, the optimal ROO tends to be less stringent.     

对我国对外直接投资区位选择的思考

本文认为我国对外直接投资的区位选择不能过于集中,目前的对策是重点投资东南亚地区,开展对发达国家周边发展中国家和资源丰富国家的投资,鼓励中小企业投资发展中国家,有针对地投资发达国家。     

Determinants of foreign direct investment in Cambodia

This paper analyses the determinants of the factors that might influence inward FDI in Cambodia by referring to its economic, geographic, and political characteristics. Using exclusive unbalanced panel data sets during 1995–2005, for both approved and realized FDI for, respectively, seventeen and fifteen home countries, the estimation results show that the determinants of approved FDI and realized FDI are somewhat similar. The FDI home country's GDP, its bilateral trade with the host country and the exchange rate have a positive impact on inward FDI flows into Cambodia. As expected, geographic distance negatively affects the level of FDI inflows in Cambodia.     

加入WTO后完善我国引进外国直接投资战略和政策的建议

自中国1978年改革开放以来，外国直接投资(FDI)从无到有，取得了较大的进展，并成为中国经济得以快速增长的一个重要因素。     

Alternative futures and foreign direct investment in China

Chinese history is littered with sharp policy swings, and the communist era, which has not yet fully drawn to a close, has witnessed a veritable embarrassment of riches. This has provided a fertile ground for researchers engaged in crystal ball gazing. Recently, momentum has accelerated on that front, a development apparently reflecting the increasingly fluid political‐economic conditions in the country. The scenarios generated can serve as an effective reference point in planning exercises, but there is scope for solidifying the conceptual architecture. The issue of rendering them highly relevant to foreign investors, presumably very important potential consumers of the product, should also be addressed.