我国企业在南南直接投资中的竞争优势分析

改革开放以来,我国吸引外商直接投资规模逐年增加,处于世界领先地位,但对外直接投资方面则处于世界落后地位。截至2004年,我国对外直接投资存量为449亿美元,仅占全球对外直接投资存量的0.55%。根据我国企业在对外直接投资方面的竞争力水平,很难在短期内大规模进入欧美等发达国家的投资市场,但在对其他发展中国家的直接投资———南南直接投资中,我国企业无论与发展中国家的竞争对手相比还是与发达国家的竞争对手相比,均有一定的竞争优势。我国企业应当正确认识自身的竞争优势,以南南直接投资为突破口,培植国际竞争力,推动“走出去”战略。     

Challenges Facing the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference

The continuing deep divisions between developed and developing countries have given rise to concerns that the Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference to be held on 13-18 December in Hong Kong will—like its predecessor, the Fifth Ministerial in Cancún—end in failure. The contributions to this Forum explore the key negotiating issues.

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* Lead Economists in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, Washington DC, USA. The authors are grateful for the collaboration of numerous colleagues, especially Dominique van der Mensbrugghe and Tom Hertel, and for research funding from the UK’s Department for International Development. The views expressed are the authors’ alone. More-detailed analysis is contained in the authors’ article “Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda”, in: The World Economy, Vol. 28, No. 9, September 2005, pp. 1301-27, and in a World Bank book edited by them and published in November 2005 by Palgrave Macmillan called “Agricultural Trade and the Doha Development Agenda”. ** This paper represents the opinions of the author. It is not meant to represent the position or opinions of the Secretariat or the WTO Members. Any errors are the fault of the author. *** See www.evenett.com for other writings on international trade-related matters. I thank Brigitte Cuendet, Bernard Hoekman, Carlos Primo Braga and Susan Prowse for sharing their insights on “aid for trade” matters in various conversations during 2005. All errors in this paper are my own. The “tough love” in the title refers to the fact that, although I am very sympathetic to the broad thrust of the aid for trade proposals, in recent months I have come to believe that not every aspect of these proposals is as well developed as possible. **** Views expressed in this article are those of the author and cannot be attributed to the OECD Secretariat or OECD Member countries.     

Testing explosive behavior of public debt in OECD countries

This paper examines the beginning and end of potentially speculative explosive public debt patterns occurring in 29 major OECD countries. The method we use is most appropriate for practical implementation with a time series and delivers a consistent date-stamping strategy for the origination and termination of multiple explosive behaviors. Our results also test that most OECD countries, except for Israel, Luxembourg, and Turkey, have experienced periods of explosive public debt. The stationarity of public debt varies by country. Approximately two-thirds of the explosive periods occurred prior to 2012. Based on the scale, structure, and safety of government debt for dynamic monitoring and evaluation, governments can improve risk management measures.     

Bribery in International Business Transactions

Globalization leads to cross-border business transactions between societies with very different norms and regulations regarding bribery. Bribery in international business transactions can be seen as a function of not only the demand for such bribes in different countries, but the supply, or willingness to provide bribes by multinational firms and their representatives. This study addresses the propensity of firms from 30 different countries to engage in international bribery. The study incorporates both domestic (economic development, culture, and domestic corruption in the supplying country) and international factors (those countries’ patterns of trade and involvement in international accords) in explaining the willingness to bribe abroad. The propensity to provide bribes was the lowest when corruption was not tolerated in the multinational firms’ home countries, when the firms’ countries were signatories of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) anti-bribery convention, and when those countries traded heavily with wealthier nations. Further, these findings are maintained when controlling for levels of economic development and cultural values in the supplying country. In terms of culture, firms from high power distance countries showed a somewhat greater propensity for providing bribes in transactions with less-developed nations.     

The development of international business in Africa (1947–1997)

The genesis of international business in Africa from 1947 to 1996 is traced to colonial times. The article analyzes the dynamics and observes that international business in Africa witnessed growth but has not meaningfully influenced Africa's general economic development because of constraints: poor infrastructure, lack of maintenance culture, inadequate funding, debt burden and overemphasis on export of raw materials instead of manufactured goods. The article suggests placing a greater emphasis on the development of intermediate and capital goods industries and granting debt relief to all African countries as a means of further promoting international business entente in Africa.     

Shipping cost and development of the landlocked developing countries: Panel evidence from the common correlated effects approach

We estimate the impact of shipping cost on development for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs). Since container trade is important to them, we construct a country-specific measure of shipping cost, called HarpexCost, which combines the global cost of container shipping with information on how exposed to container shipping each LLDC is. We employ the common correlated effects (CCE) estimator of Pesaran (Econometrica, 2006; 55: 967) to first estimate the impact of HarpexCost on the LLDCs’ development, and then recover the actual impact of shipping cost from these estimates. Overall, we observe that shipping cost has large negative effects on the LLDCs. Building upon these results, we provide new estimates on the cost of landlockedness and how trade benefits their development.     

The Role of the OECD and EU Conventions in Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials

The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (the OECD Convention) obligates signatory nations to make bribery of foreign public officials a criminal act on an extraterritorial basis. The purposes of this article are to describe the nature and consequences of bribery, outline the major provisions of the OECD Convention, and analyze its role in promoting transparency and accountability in international business. While the OECD Convention is not expected to totally eliminate the seeking or taking of bribes, there are hopes that a uniform set of rules will curtail corrupt behavior, as long as those rules are both enforceable and enforced.     

Retroactive terms adjustment

The concept of Retroactive Terms Adjustment (RTA) emerged as a response to the urgent need for international action on the debt problems of the developing countries. The following article analyses the concept and the contribution RTA has made towards solving the debt problem.     

国际双边发展援助对FDI的影响研究——基于17个OECD国家对华发展援助的实证

本文运用扩展的Solow模型阐述了援助影响FDI的理论机制,并以中国为研究主体,以17个OECD国家的数据为样本,实证分析了双边发展援助对FDI的短期、中期和长期效应。实证结果显示:在短期,17个OECD国家的对华发展援助挤出了这些国家对中国的FDI,但在中长期促进了这些国家对中国的FDI,并且时间越长,促进效应越强。因此,发达国家向中国投入发展援助是有效的。双方应充分利用这种有效性,发达国家现期不适宜取消对华发展援助,中国应积极寻求双边发展援助来促进新兴产业和中西部地区的发展。     

The creditworthiness and international payment ability of sovereign states

At the beginning of the 1990s debt accumulation has become persistent and the growth-cum-debt models which previously guided international lending offer no solution to the problem. The following article argues that major deficiencies in the methods used until now to assess the creditworthiness of debtor countries have exacerbated the debt problem and suggests an alternative approach.     

The economics of Third World arms imports

The international trade with weapons and its effects on the Third World are rarely mentioned in papers on international trade. This is not really surprising, given the fact that military affairs are kept very secret. Of all social science data it is probably that of the military sector which is the most scarce and unreliable. Despite these difficulties the author of the following article describes some recent trends in the international trade in major weapons and analyses their negative effects on Third World countries.     

Structural Change and Evolution of the Services Sector in the OECD

The aim of this article is to present the results of research on the structural changes that have been taking place in all the OECD countries from 1960 to 1985. The services sector continued to grow after the recent economic crisis but some different approaches are used in order to explain this.

First, the analysis tries to show the general trends of the structural changes and the behaviour differences of the OECD economies before and after the beginning of the international crisis. The article goes on to examine the intensity of the sectorial changes by countries, the aim being to investigate the coincidences and the important differences existing between them. In spite of some interesting points that come out of the research, the article offers a clear criticism of current ideas about what has been called ‘the tertiarisation process'.     

Political Risk Assessment and the Arab Spring: What Can We Learn?

Whether dealing with debt issues in the Eurozone, investment prospects in emerging markets, or potential disruptions in patterns of global trade, the identification, assessment, and measurement of political risk (PR) are recurring issues for businesses and governments today. In the past few years, abrupt social and political change has become the rule in international relations. A prominent instance of this is the “Arab Spring,” the massive and unexpected wave of social and political turmoil that, starting in the winter of 2010‐2011, swept across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The Arab Spring has significantly affected the business climate of the countries involved. In doing so, it has also exposed the shortcomings of the extant approaches to PR assessment. This article discusses the performance of five different approaches to PR assessment (OECD, ONDD, EIU, PRS, SACE) vis‐à‐vis the Arab Spring, providing some specific suggestions on how to improve PR assessment and analysis. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Can the international debt strategy use the concept of corporate compositions?

So far, it has been possible to stave off really serious consequences for the world economy and the international financial system since the developing-country debt crisis started in 1982. Yet for many developing countries, external debt problems and the underlying economic crisis are as pressing as ever. The following article identifies five central elements of a general orientation framework for dealing with the debt crisis which has been inspired by the basic idea of the concept of corporate compositions found in commercial law.     

Loan loss provisioning

Before the background of the debt crisis loan loss provisioning has been gaining in importance, as one of the measures adopted by banks to reduce their exposure in highly indebted countries and to strengthen their balance sheets. Prof. Abbott examines the concept and forms of provisioning, and discusses the recent establishment of international guidelines and their likely effects on the debt crisis.     

Structural adjustment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa

As a result of a donor conference staged by the World Bank in Paris on 3rd and 4th December, 1987, donor countries and international organizations now intend to make $6.4 billion available in the form of a special programme to highly indebted, low-income African countries to carry out structural adjustment programmes during the period 1988–1990. This sum includes approximately $6.4 billion available in the form of a special programme to highly indebted, low-income African countries to carry out structural adjustment programmes during the period 1988–1990. This sum includes approximately 3.2 billion of additional funds which donor countries wish to provide in support of such programmes on a co-financing or parallel financing basis together with the World Bank. This article offers an initial assessment of the proposed special programme, the possibilities opened up, the risks involved, and the necessary conditions for its success. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.     

Future trends in international migration

The author evaluates projections by the World Bank that show a significant decline in international migration over the next decade. "This projection not only assumes a narrowing of the welfare gap between industrialised and developing countries. It also sets out from the premise that potential migrants react to changes in the economic and social conditions in their home countries with more or less constant (negative) migration elasticities. The following article shows that there is reason to question the validity of this assumption."     

Countertrade with developing countries: New opportunities for North-South trade?

Unconventional forms of international trade (such as counterpurchase, compensation deals and barter) have assumed rapidly growing importance, especially in many developing countries, as a consequence of the fall in commodity prices and the worsening of international debt problems since the oil price increases of 1973–74 and 1979. By using these trading methods countries expect to be able to ensure a continuation of the urgently needed flow of imports, open up new markets for surplus products and bring about greater export diversification as between both regions and products. The following article therefore focuses on the countertrade of Third World countries, both among themselves and with industrialised countries.     

Behavior of output during currency crises

This paper documents the behavior of output and its association with other macroeconomic variables in 195 episodes of currency crises in developing countries during 1970-2000. We find that about 60% of the crises are contractionary, while the rest are expansionary. Crises are one and a half times more likely to be contractionary in emerging markets than in other developing economies. The number of contractionary crises or their severity does not increase in the 1990s. Economies which experience capital inflows in the years prior to the crisis or an increase in external debt burden during the crisis are more likely to slow down during crises, while those with restrictions on capital flows prior to the crisis or are more open to international trade are less likely to do so. The results are robust to different ways of measuring changes in output during crises.     

Trade openness,foreign direct investment,and finance-growth nexus in the Eurozone countries

The paper investigates causal relationships between trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development, and economic growth in 19 Eurozone countries over the period 1988–2013. Using a panel vector error-correction model (VECM), the empirical results show that these variables are cointegrated. The study shows that a combination of opening the Eurozone countries for trade and fostering their financial and economic development have elevated inflows of foreign direct investment into the region in the long run. At the same time, increasing inflows of foreign direct investment in the short run have propelled economic growth, which in return has strengthened the role of financial development and international trade to sustain economic growth in the region through feedback effects. The empirical results have important policy implications for countries in the Eurozone, especially those who face challenges as a result of lack of confidence in their financial system and those who face a sovereign debt crisis.