U.S. foreign direct investment in Latin America and the Caribbean: a case of remittances and market size

This article investigates the effect of remittances on U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It covers 26 countries for the period 1983–2010. The results show a positive and significant impact of remittances on U.S. FDI flows. However, this effect depends upon the level of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the host country. On average, the results show that increasing remittances by one standard deviation increases U.S. FDI flows by 0.44 percent a year. Also, host country demand positively affects U.S. FDI flows, which supports the market size hypothesis.     

Flows of direct investment and their effects on U.S. domestic investment

Based on the ex post patterns of direct investment, separate hypotheses are offered on the effects of the outflows and inflows of direct investment on U.S. domestic investment. The outflows of capital will stimulate domestic investment and the inflows will displace this investment. Applying an accelerator-flow of funds model of investment with Almon lags for 1959I–1971IV, the results mildly support the hypothesis on the effect of capital outflows, whereas they clearly support the hypothesis on the adverse effect of foreign direct investment in the U.S.     

The Canada U.S. free trade agreement: Competitive tradeoffs between foreign direct investment and trade

This paper assesses the impact of the Canada U.S. Free Trade Agreement on exports and foreign direct investment of processed foods. Results indicate that U.S. exports to Canada more than doubled, while Canadian exports to the U.S. nearly doubled after the implementation of the Canada U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1989. Regression results of the covariance model on panel data show that U.S. and Canadian food processing firms appear to use both exports and foreign direct investments as complementary market access strategies. This research was supported by a grant from the Canadian Embassy. In addition, the authors thank Carolyn Dimitri of the University of Maryland for helpful comments.     

Information-eliciting compensation schemes

This paper examines the implications of the ‘residence’ approach to taxing foreign source income such as employed by the United States. It is argued that, because the repatriation of earnings to the home country investor and not the earnings themselves are typically the source of tax liability, the foreign source income tax should affect foreign investment differently depending on the required transfers of funds within the firm.One implication of viewing the tax in this way is that in order to maximize after-tax profits, a firm should finance its foreign investment out of foreign earnings to the greatest extent possible. That is, a firm's required foreign return jumps at the point at which desired foreign investment just exhausts foreign earnings. This allows us to draw a distinction between ‘mature’ foreign operations, which are at any point in time financed at the margin by investing earnings (and perhaps also pay dividends to their parent firm in the home country), and ‘immature’ foreign affiliates, which rely on funding from their parents (and should not be paying dividends). It is noted that survey evidence on multinational firm behavior is consistent with this distinction. Direct investment data indicate that mature foreign operations probably account for nearly 90 percent of U.S. foreign direct investment.The discussion then turns to investment incentives. It is shown that the home country's rate of tax on foreign source income and the presence or absence of a foreign tax credit should be irrelevant to a mature foreign operations's investment and dividend decisions. This conclusion, which conflicts sharply with the conventional wisdom, follows because the home country tax acts as an unavoidable cost. New firms' investment decisions are, on the other hand, influenced by home country taxes.     

FOREIGN ENTRY INTO U.S. SERVICE INDUSTRY BY TAKEOVERS AND THE CREATION OF NEW FIRMS

We study the relation between foreign entry in U.S. service sector industries and the revealed comparative advantage of the investing country using U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis firm‐level data on all foreign takeovers and new foreign‐owned firms from 1998 to 2008. We find foreign acquisitions in the service sector are in industries of U.S. comparative advantage while new foreign firms are in industries of investing country's comparative advantage. This suggests that foreign acquisitions in the service sector are not directly related to foreign investors' competitiveness in the industry of investment. In contrast foreign investors in new service sector firms come from countries with a competitive edge in the industries of investment. We also find that foreign investors of new service sector firms are from Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries with a comparative disadvantage in royalties and trademarks. (JEL F21, F23, G34)     

The volatility of offshore investment

Offshore investment often bears the image of 'footloose' industry, with little to hinder movement to the most favorable environment. An effort to describe this particular segment of U.S. direct investment supports some elements of the colorful anecdotal portrait painted by critics in the Third World. Semiconductor assemblers are moderately sensitive to wage rates, and adjust quite rapidly in maintaining what they perceive as a diversified portfolio of 'risky' LDC production locations. On the other hand, this reaction is small enough to guarantee that modest increases in wages will not send all investment fleeing from an export platform. New methods of modelling direct foreign investment when risk diversification is important in explaining industrial location decisions are introduced in this paper.     

Why is U.S. direct investment in China so small?

While the United States is the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world, and China is the largest FDI recipient among developing countries, U.S. direct investment (USDI) in China has been surprisingly small. This article investigates the determinants of USDI through a relative-demand model with time-series data. Evidence presented in this article indicates that the small USDI cannot be fully appreciated without understanding differences between USDI and Hong Kong direct investment (HKDI), the latter being the dominant source of FDI in China. Empirical results suggest that the USDI in China was primarily motivated by market access and that the HKDI was export oriented. The small USDI thus is a result of U.S. investors' preference for market access and China's export-promotion FDI regime, along with the troubled Sino-U.S. relations and political instabilities in China.     

美国跨国公司服务中国市场-为什么偏爱出口贸易?

直接投资和出口贸易是跨国公司服务东道国市场的两大主要方式,然而就美国跨国公司而言,与其服务大多数东道国的方式不同,其服务中国市场时主要以出口贸易为主。为此,我们以异质性贸易理论为基础,分析了跨国公司方式选择的理论基础和美国跨国公司和中国作为东道国的比较优势,并借助多个国家的制造业行业数据进行实证检验,试图解释美国跨国公司服务中国市场的经济行为。研究表明,美国服务中国市场的方式主要以混合型直接投资为主,这是美国跨国公司更偏爱出口贸易的主要原因。此外,本文还发现,运输成本越大、生产率异质性越大和工厂水平固定成本越小,跨国公司就会更加偏爱直接投资而不是出口贸易。     

The Reverse Direct Investment: The Case of the Korean Consumer Electronics Industry

This paper discusses the nature of foreign direct investments by firms from developing countries in industrialized country markets, which is coined as “reverse direct investment.” On the basis of the experiences of the Korean consumer electronics firms operating in the U.S., this paper identifies the nature of the investment as “defensive” and “premature“ strategic moves of firms in their internationalization process. There investment are made not to exploit firms' monopolistic firm-specific advantages, but to protect their export markets at an earlier time than economic forces might have led them to do. However, in the process, firms try to convert their home country-specific advantage (e.g. low labor cost) into firm-specific ones as much as possible. [440]     

中国自贸试验区建设吸引了外商直接投资流入吗? ——来自216个地级市的面板数据考察

自由贸易试验区作为中国深化改革与开放的一项政策实验,尝试通过制度创新实现贸易、投资自由化,其政策效果究竟如何？研究基于2000—2019年216个地级市面板数据,运用广义合成控制法实证检验了我国自贸试验区对外商直接投资的影响。研究发现,自贸试验区在一定程度上吸引了外商直接投资流入,且随着时间推进,其对外商直接投资的正向促进作用愈发明显;控制其他政策因素的多期双重差分法的结果进一步验证了上述结论的可靠性。研究进一步发现：自贸试验区吸引外商直接投资的政策效果存在差异性。从时间趋势看,不同批次自贸试验区的政策导向不同,对外商直接投资的影响力度不同;从区域层面看,自贸试验区建设中,东部地区对外商直接投资的促进作用更强,中部地区的政策效应存在滞后性,西部地区吸引外商直接投资力度有下降趋势;从城市规模看,自贸试验区建设对一线城市外商直接投资的吸引力度更明显,级别越低的城市可塑性越强,吸引外商直接投资流入效果越显著。从不同发展梯度看,沿海自贸试验区对外商直接投资的正向影响程度高于内陆自贸试验区,而沿边自贸试验区并未发挥出对外商直接投资的吸引作用。     

中国外汇储备投资组合选择——基于外汇储备循环路径的内生性分析

本文从中美两国经济的本质性差异出发,通过刻画中国外汇储备对外投资的"循环路径",构建了包括央行、金融市场和实体经济的斯塔克尔伯格及古诺模型,进而模拟出中国外汇储备对外投资对本国经济的间接贡献、合意的外汇储备投资组合,以及最优外汇储备投资规模。研究结果表明,中国外汇储备投资于美国风险资产的规模将影响外汇储备间接转化为美国对中国FDI的比例。同时,中国央行外汇储备规模及投资策略对危机时期的反应不足。改变外汇储备投资收益的主要方法包括降低居民的相对风险回避系数,通过政策引导促进居民消费,以及大力发展中国金融市场,降低对美国金融市场的依赖程度。     

Democratic Accountability,Regulation and Inward Investment Policy

We examine the effect of domestic political accountability on leaders' strategies for attracting foreign direct investment to less developed countries. We consider two policy areas: the tax burden imposed on firms and the regulatory environment in which they operate. We find that democratic governments are more likely to offer relatively lower tax rates to foreign investors, whereas autocratic governments are more likely to offer relatively lax regulation. This result is driven by the greater elasticity of the political survival function to environmental and labor regulations in more democratic countries. Analyses of firm‐level survey data confirm our main theoretical conclusions.     

Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment

Despite the growing interest in capital and technology issues, certain issues still remain to be explored regarding the determinants of foreign direct investment by a multinational corporation and the corporation's consequent choice of investment location. This paper addresses some of these concerns by analyzing the determinants of foreign direct investment by a multinational corporation, both theoretically and empirically. For this purpose, the paper integrates a number of traditional and nontraditional variables into the standard theory of investment based on the maximization of the expected value of the firm. The theoretical model implies that both traditional as well as nontraditional factors matter in determining the flows of foreign direct investment in a country. The generalized investment theory on US foreign direct investment then is tested empirically utilizing panel data for 44 countries from 1983 to 1990. The estimation results provide considerable support for the importance of both traditional and nontraditional factors in determining flows of foreign direct investment in a country. Furthermore, the country-specific dummies show high level of significance, reflecting the importance of the country-specific characteristics in explaining flows of foreign direct investment.     

An alternative approach to the monitoring of technological diffusion via foreign direct investment: evidence from the Greek manufacturing sector

The existing studies of foreign direct investment and the corresponding technological diffusion process that they generate, focus either on specific parameters of the production process in isolation, or they combine certain parameters to construct indices that are not consistent across studies. The present analysis proposes an alternative approach that captures the entire production process and multinational firms are viewed as the platform that transfers more advanced technologies to the host countries. As multinational firms are able to utilise more efficiently the available production process, an efficiency gap ensues between the domestically owned firms of a country and the multinational firms that operate in it. We capture and provide a measure and a monitoring mechanism of the technological diffusion process via foreign direct investment through the evolution of the efficiency gap between the two groups of firms whilst controlling for other variables that might contribute to such a gap. We apply our approach to the manufacturing sector of the Greek economy that experiences a consistent presence of foreign direct investment inflows over the time period 2001–2007.     

Flows of direct investment and their effects on investment in Canada

An accelerator-flow of funds model of investment is used to estimate the effects of direct investment abroad by Canadian firms and direct investment by foreign firms on domestic investment in Canada for the period 1957.I–1971.IV. The results show that direct investment abroad has a negative effect, whereas foreign direct investment has a positive effect on domestic investment. The latter results confirm earlier findings by Caves and Reuber (1971).     

美国在华直接投资对中美贸易不平衡的影响研究

20世纪90年代以来,美国在华直接投资额呈迅速上升趋势,中美贸易规模也不断扩大,与此同时,两国的贸易差额也逐年增大,双边贸易的不平衡加剧了贸易摩擦。本文首先从美国在华投资对中美贸易差额所产生的各种效应阐述了中美贸易失衡的原因,然后通过实证分析得出美国在华直接投资与中美贸易顺差之间存在长期协整关系的结论,即美国在华直接投资是导致中美贸易顺差的决定性因素。最后提出缓解中美贸易不平衡的相关对策建议。     

Moving to greener pastures? Multinationals and the pollution haven hypothesis

This paper presents evidence on whether multinationals are flocking to developing country “pollution havens”. Although we find some evidence that foreign investors locate in sectors with high levels of air pollution, the evidence is weak at best. We then examine whether foreign firms pollute less than their peers. We find that foreign plants are significantly more energy efficient and use cleaner types of energy. We conclude with an analysis of U.S. outbound investment. Although the pattern of U.S. foreign investment is skewed towards industries with high costs of pollution abatement, the results are not robust across specifications.     

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AND U.S. R&D SUBSIDIES: A QUANTITATIVE WELFARE ANALYSIS*

In the early 1970s U.S. firms were the uncontested world leaders in R&D investment in most manufacturing sectors. Later, led by Japan and Europe, foreign firms began to challenge American R&D leadership in many sectors of the economy. This period of increasing technological competition is contemporaneous with a substantial increase in U.S. R&D subsidies. What is the effect of the observed increase in international competition on U.S. welfare? How does foreign competition affect the optimal R&D subsidy in the United States, and, consequently, how far is this from the subsidy observed in the data? This article addresses these questions in a two‐country quality ladder growth model.     

Tariff‐jumping FDI and domestic firms' profits

Abstract.  Studies of trade policy welfare effects often ignore the potential for tariff‐jumping foreign direct investment (FDI) to mitigate positive gains to domestic producers. Using event study methodology we find that affirmative U.S. antidumping decisions are associated with average abnormal gains of over 3% to a firm in the petitioning industry in the absence of tariff‐jumping FDI, but much smaller and statistically insignificant abnormal gains if there is tariff‐jumping FDI. We also find evidence that tariff jumping in the form of new plants or plant expansion has significantly larger negative effects on U.S. domestic firms' profits than other types of tariff‐jumping FDI. JEL Classification: F13, F23, L11     

人民币汇率与外商直接投资关系研究——基于上海市的数据

运用Johansen协整检验、Granger因果检验、脉冲响应分析等实证方法研究上海市外商直接投资与人民币实际有效汇率及其波动之间的相关性,研究表明:上海市外商直接投资(FDI)与实际有效汇率(REER)、地区国内生产总值(GDP)和对外依存度(OPEN)显著正相关,与汇率波动(VOL)和平均工资(WAGE)显著负相关;短期内人民币实际有效汇率及其波动对上海市外商直接投资存在影响,且汇率的波动比其实际值的大小更能影响外商直接投资;实际有效汇率及其波动的冲击在零期对外商直接投资均没有影响,响应值在第四期达到最大,实际有效汇率对于外商直接投资的影响主要体现在投资时机的选择上。