The FDI location decision: Distance and the effects of spatial dependence

We investigate how different conceptions of distance impact upon one of the fundamental decisions made by foreign investors, the choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) location within the selected host country. We argue that the attractiveness of host country locations to foreign investors depends not only upon location-specific attributes such as labor costs, but also upon the location's proximity to alternative locations. We provide theoretical rationales for how and why alternative concepts of distance might impact upon firms’ FDI location decisions, and explicitly model different measures of geographic, economic and administrative distance. Empirically we illustrate the use of a number of spatial regression models with a new dataset on FDI in Chinese prefecture-cities, and have shown, in this context, that geographic distance is not the ‘best’ measure of distance to use. We find clear evidence of spatial dependence between the cities based upon economic distance, with weaker evidence related to administrative distance. The distinctive contribution of this paper is to emphasize that city-level policy to attract FDI is more likely to succeed if the prefecture-city is economically (and administratively) close to alternative city locations, while any policy expenditure may fail to attract FDI inflows if the prefecture-city is distant from other city locations.     

Foreign Direct Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Motivating Factors and Policy Issues

Sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) foreign direct investment (FDI) share has persistently averaged 1% of global flows. The location decision and perceptions of investors are therefore instructive for policy making. This article factor analyses a survey of perceptions, operations, and motivations of 758 foreign investors in 10 SSA countries. We find that the provision of transaction cost–reducing information on industries and markets and utility services to investors before and after a firm's FDI decision are significant factors. FDI location decision in SSA is influenced strongly by political economy considerations. Labor and production input variables are not influential.     

Indonesia

Indonesia's long stability of over three decades came to a sudden end after the regional economic crisis of 1997–1998. The economic crisis not only shattered the Indonesian economy but also resulted in political turmoil. The national leadership has changed three times over the last five years. In such conditions, the confidence of foreign investors is very low. The present government has initiated a number of steps to restore political stability and economic recovery. This article provides useful information on the complex business environment, aimed to help foreign investors to develop a good understanding on key background knowledge for being successful in Indonesia. It reviews Indonesian historical development, political structure and climate, regional relations, and economy and foreign trade. Indonesia's infrastructure, legal framework, sociocultural setup, as well as market structure and potential, are also analyzed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Tobacco Business and Regulation in the Developing Markets

Abstract

This paper compares BAT's business environment in Kenya and Uganda in light of the World Health Organization's (WHO) tobacco control initiative. It also illustrates the use of tobacco tax by Sub-Saharan African countries to address tobacco related conundrums. The comparison revealed elements of government ambivalence towards tobacco business and a possible recourse to tobacco tax to mollify global pressure against big tobacco. The paper uses the partial correlations between tobacco tax and basic economic development indicators across Sub-Saharan Africa and previous World Bank data as indicative of tobacco tax efficacy in controlling consumption in the region. It suggests that Sub-Saharan Africa may find regionally designed tax-based policy guidelines a palatable strategic alternative to global firms (such as BAT) that face a hostile global business environment. A united policy front that fits within the region's institutions can reduce complexity and create efficiencies through lower administrative costs across the region. Such action will make the region relatively more attractive (than it is currently) to foreign investors.     

Conflict and Innovation in International Joint Ventures: Toward a New Sinified Corporate Culture or ‘Alternative Globalization’ in China

Deng Xiaoping's open-door economic policy provides an opportunity for international economic cooperation and development. Our study attempts to investigate how conflicts between Chinese workers and foreign investors as manifested in human resources management arise, evolve and get resolved in Sino–foreign joint ventures. It hypothesizes that conflicts as such can be functional or dysfunctional and that both partners believe that it is in their best interest to resolve the conflicts. The conflict resolution process witnesses all parties engaging in a process of purposeful learning and unlearning and creating a new sinified corporate culture that best suits the evolving business culture and social milieu in China today – as China experiments with the idea of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics. The guiding conceptual framework of our study is that of convergence theory. We argue that the socio-economic and cultural convergence between China and the West has produced a common hybrid of cross-cultural innovations in China or, in a global perspective, ‘alternative cultural globalization’. This hybridizing convergence is best exemplified by the gradual localization and sinification of the Western corporate culture in Sino–foreign enterprises in China today.     

Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland: Policy Implications for Emerging Economies

Ireland's success in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) provides guidance for emerging economies. The key to Ireland's success is its consistency of policy towards FDI. Ireland's success suggests that emerging countries should be proactive in seeking FDI, offer a package of incentives that is enterprise‐centred yet is sufficiently selective to build self‐sustaining clusters. Policy consistency is important to inward investors and this can be traded off against selectivity and monitoring of performance.     

Internal Determinants Affecting Interest in Exporting:

Research on the export behavior of the nonexporting firms has remained limited in developing nations. Therefore, there is little factual information about their export behavior. The objective of the present study is to find out, if there are any structural differences between Turkish nonexporters, which are exploring the feasibility of exporting, and those which are not interested in exporting at all. Findings show that there is a significant relation between company size, management's foreign language proficiency, international orientation, firm's competitive advantages, dependence on imports and desire to sell abroad. However, a significant relation is not found for other internal determinants such as manager's age, company goal, capacity use and technology intensiveness. These findings and implications are of interest to public policy makers, foreign investors and academicians interested in comparative studies.     

How does FX liquidity affect the relationship between foreign ownership and stock liquidity?

This study investigates the roles foreign investors play in a representative emerging market, focusing on the relationship between foreign ownership and stock market liquidity as well as this relationship's response to foreign exchange (FX) liquidity. Our analyses yield three main results. First, the bid–ask spread and price impact of stock trades decrease along with foreign ownership, supporting the view that foreign investors tend to improve stock liquidity. Second, foreign ownership decreases along with a decline in FX liquidity, suggesting that foreign investors care about FX liquidity when determining their stock holdings. Third, stock liquidity increases continuously along with foreign ownership as FX liquidity decreases. Overall, this study's evidence indicates that foreign investors, as liquidity providers, can play a positive role in an emerging economy even when FX liquidity declines.     

The Selection of Distribution Channels in China

This contribution first traces the development of the distribution system in China from state monopoly to one which permits the limited participation of foreign ventures, and examines the problems faced by foreign investors in managing the distribution channels under such a transitional economy. Due to China's abundance of linguistic, cultural and economic differences, combined with growing territorialism at the provincial level, different problems may be encountered in different citieslregions, and therefore foreign investors need to modify their distribution strategies accordingly. Detailed case studies are provided as illustrations.     

Institutional conditions,economic policy uncertainty and foreign institutional investment in China

This paper investigates the influence of host and home country institutional conditions on foreign institutional investment. Utilizing longitudinal and multilevel data on foreign institutional investment in Chinese listed firms between 2004 and 2017, we document that foreign institutional investment decreases with increasing economic policy uncertainty in the host nation. We also find that foreign institutional investors respond more strongly to local economic policy uncertainty when their home nations are closer to China, are culturally and administratively similar to China, operate a smaller domestic stock market, and have weaker minority shareholder protection. The impact of economic policy uncertainty on foreign institutional investment is also stronger when the host nation institution is more developed and open.. Moreover, we reveal the mediating role of stock market volatility on this relationship. Overall, we document that foreign institutional investment is not only shaped by institutional conditions in the host country but also influenced by home country characteristics that define geographical and institutional distance between home and host nations.     

Bank Loan Announcements and Borrower Stock Returns: Does Bank Origin Matter?

Banks play a special role as providers of informative signals about the quality and value of their borrowers. Such signals, however, may have a quality of their own as the banks' selection and monitoring abilities may differ. Using an event study methodology, we study the importance of the geographical origin and organization of the banks for the investors' assessments of firms' credit quality and economic worth following loan announcements. Our sample comprises 986 announcements of bank loans to US firms over the period of 1980–2003. We find that investors react positively to such announcements if the loans are made by foreign or local banks, but not if the loans are made by banks that are located outside the firm's headquarters state. Investor reaction is, in fact, the largest when the bank is foreign. Our evidence suggest that investors value relationships with more competitive and skilled banks rather than banks that have easier access to private information about the firms. These results are applicable also to the European markets where regulatory and economic borders do not coincide and bank identities and reputation seem to matter a great deal.     

China R&D: A High-Tech Field of Dreams1

This study highlights the rapid pace at which new commercial research and development (R&D) centres are being established by foreign investors in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It recounts the motivations behind this growing trend, subtle changes in this trend over time, some lessons learned, and asks what it could mean for future Asia-Pacific relations. The essay emphasizes China's distinct role in attracting R&D through its extensive investment in municipal services, infrastructure and regulatory reforms as well as policy incentives that have helped to spur ever-greater levels of foreign R&D investment over the past decade.     

China's National Champions: The Evolution of a National Industrial Policy—Or a New Era of Economic Protectionism?

In this article we ask a series of related research questions concerning China's recent industrial policies, particularly the 10th and 11th five‐year economic policy plans. Our questions go to the nature of China's long‐term competitiveness of its national champions, and to what extent Chinese government policies are evolving to domestic protectionism that adversely affects foreign invested enterprises' (FIEs) competitive position in the Chinese economy. We thus evaluate the nature of the five‐year economic policy plans, their adverse impact on FIEs operating in China, and the rise of designated Chinese national champions (in the 11th five‐year economic policy plan) to compete with major FIEs on a global scale. However, we suggest that the role of the Chinese government's recent industrial policy, when compared to Michael Porter's “Diamond of National Competitive Advantage” recommended government policy approaches, may not augur well in the long‐term for China's national champions. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

加入世贸组织之后中国外资政策的变化与韩国企业的对华投资

中国在加入世界贸易组织以后,利用外资的政策有了明显的变化。不仅体现在对投资的行业进行了调整上,而且对外资逐步地实行国民待遇并加强对外资企业的管理。本文在分析中国利用外资政策变化的基础上,从投资规模、投资结构、投资主体以及投资收益等方面分析中国利用外资政策变化对韩国对华直接投资的影响。     

The interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns: Evidence from Turkey

Using monthly foreign flows data on Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and employing a structural VAR model, we analyze the interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns. In contrast to most of the available theory and repeated previous findings on other markets, foreign investors negative-feedback-trade with respect to past local returns in ISE, however only in rising markets and especially under macroeconomic instability. Net foreign flows forecast future market returns, but not individual stock returns. Price impacts are permanent, suggesting that foreigners' trading incorporates information. Overall, results reject previous conclusions that foreigners are uninformed positive feedback traders: rather, they are a heterogeneous group dominated by sophisticated investors able to rationally adjust their trading style in line with the market's prevailing characteristics.     

Foreign Investors' Reaction to Lower Profitability – The Role of Information Asymmetry*

Owners of firms in trouble are more exposed to moral hazard problems than owners of successful firms. Foreign owners who face higher costs to monitor the firm should be more vulnerable to these problems than domestic ones. Consequently, a downward revision in a firm's expected future earnings should push foreign investors to sell their shares to a larger extent than domestic investors. We test this hypothesis on profit warnings issued at the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Our results reveal that in the wake of profit warnings foreign investors will predominantly sell, while domestic investors pick up the net sales by foreigners. Differences in the scale of the foreign investor sell‐out reaction are explained by a number of variables. The most significant one is our proxy for the magnitude of surprise in the warning. The reaction also increases with the degree of perceived information asymmetry for the firm that issued the warning, while foreign members on the firm's board have a moderating impact. By contrast, a number of general corporate governance‐related variables have no statistically significant impact on the reaction.     

美债危机的成因、影响及我国未来的经济政策走势分析

美债危机的成因主要在于三个方面,即美债累积数额巨大;世界经济复苏放缓凸显了美债违约的严重性;美国两党未能及时达成共识,没有给市场充分消化的时间,引发了投资者恐慌情绪的蔓延等。美债危机短期内对我国经济的不利影响有限,但长期看将进一步推动我国经济结构调整和外汇投资多元化进程。我国经济增长不会出现大幅下滑,经济结构调整步伐将进一步加快;人民币升值趋势将加快;输入性通胀压力依然严峻;政策进入观望期,紧缩政策可能出现微调;外汇储备风险增加,多元化投资进程将加快。     

Potential FDI causing large distortions in domestic production

When a foreign firm enters a domestic market, either via exports or through foreign direct investment (FDI), one factor determining the most favourable entrance mode is the profitability of the market, which may not be directly observed by the foreign firm. If the domestic trade protection policy is within a certain range that causes the foreign entrant's decision to swing between the two entry modes, the final choice will depend on the foreign firm's belief about the profitability. In such a situation, a domestic incumbent firm wishing to prevent FDI will heavily distort its production downward to convince the foreign competitor that the market is not profitable. When making trade policy, such strategic behaviour on the part of the domestic firm should be taken into account.     

ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area: A Bane or Boon for ASEAN Countries?

At the ASEAN Summit in November 2000, the leaders of ASEAN and China agreed to enhance economic cooperation and integration with the goal of establishing an ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area (FTA). This decision was a natural response to a number of important global and regional developments of the past decade. Since the signing of the framework agreement, policymakers from China and ASEAN member states have already started their negotiations on the specific terms and features for this proposed FTA. While such an FTA would hold the potential of yielding enormous economic benefits, it also causes some sense of apprehension and uncertainty in some quarters, due to the common perception that China is already a strong competitor in trade and attracting foreign investment. To examine the economic basis for such concern, this paper analyses the economic implications of this proposed free trade area from the ASEAN economies’ perspective. Specifically, it examines how competitive ASEAN countries are vis‐à‐vis China, evaluate the scope for strengthening China‐ASEAN trade and the impediments facing Chinese and ASEAN investors in each other's markets, and recommends policy measures to maximise the benefits and minimise the hardships resulting from an ASEAN‐China FTA.