Foreign Direct Investment in British Retailing, 1850–1962

This article describes a newly compiled dataset on foreign multinationals in British retailing and compares the patterns of inward investment in retailing with those in manufacturing. Foreign retailers were present in Britain well before foreign manufacturers, but their numbers did not grow as dramatically after 1890. Strikingly, very few pre-World War Two foreign entrants into UK retailing were actually retailers. The great majority were instead foreign manufacturers pursuing international markets through investing in dedicated distribution channels. These hybrid multinationals retained their home manufacturing base and mostly restricted their internationalisation to retailing.     

Advertising/Sales Ratios in the UK, 1969–1980

For more than 30 years The Advertising Association has produced statistics of advertising expenditure in the United Kingdom. The figures are produced by means of an annual survey in which data are collected from the media, advertising agencies and advertisers. The advertising/sales ratios shown below are the last section of the figures to be released each year, since it is necessary to wait for the CSO compiled ‘sales’ data before the calculations can be made.     

Foreign Direct Investment Will Reach US$63.81 Bin in 2007

Recently, Center for Fore casting Science Chinese .Academy of Sciencespredicted that China will absorb foreign direct investment （FDI） about US$63.81 billion increasing by 4% compared with the number in 2006. The increasing trend is basically the same as 2006.     

No Risk,No Fun? Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe

In the course of transition from planned economies to market economies, foreign direct investment played an important role and contributed to international economic integration in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper investigates the determinants of FDI in Central and Eastern Europe, a region which in large part still lacks strong institutions. The empirical analysis presented in this article fi nds evidence that country default risk is not necessarily a hindrance to FDI. In contrast, factors like market size, labour cost and trade liberalisation do matter for FDI engagement in the region.     

Still Big in Bangkok? An Empirical Analysis of the Regional Distribution of Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand

This paper analyses regional Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Thailand. Its determinants are identified using a unique assembled panel dataset comprising all 76 Thai provinces during the period 1985–2005. The work is premised on the view that foreign investors consider various determinants of location choices in each province (including labour costs, Gross Provincial Products (GPP) per head, areas of industrial estates, communication and transportation issues, population characteristics, educational attainment, population density and distance from the centre of town to the main ports of Thailand) as well as government incentives, before deciding to undertake FDI in a given region. Our econometric model estimates suggest that government regional policy, and the effect of zoning in particular, however, has a significant and positive effect on regional FDI, drawing FDI to those zones where the greatest incentives are on offer. The other possible determinants of FDI amongst regions are largely shown to be insignificant.     

Agglomeration, Relative Wage Costs and Foreign Direct Investment—Evidence from Swedish MNCs 1974–1998

This paper examines the relationship between agglomeration economies and relative wage costs in influencing location of multinational corporations. An inflow of firms to certain regions and industries is likely to increase demand for labor. If mobility of labor is low increased costs can be expected to deter additional inflows of firms, albeit agglomeration economies may compensate for higher wages. Despite its important policy implications this relationship has to our knowledge not been exposed to empirical testing. The empirical analysis finds that foreign direct investment has become increasingly sensitive to differences in wage cost across industrialized countries, but also that agglomeration economies related to knowledge externalities positively influences higher costs. The relative strength of these two forces impacts the spatial distribution of production.

A distribution revolution: Changes in music distribution in the UK 1950–76

Little business history has been written on the popular music industry while sociological study has tended to focus on the effect of the industry on society. This paper concentrates on how recorded popular music reached the customer, charting the evolution of the industry in the UK from a cartel structure distributing only to specialists, into an industry which allowed upstream entry freely but increasingly emphasised large-scale distribution through mass retailers by the mid-1970s. The paper examines the structure of music distribution in the UK prior to 1965 and how the industry adapted its distribution strategy to the changing environment after 1965.     

The Development of an Organisational Innovation: Management Buy-Outs in the UK, 1980–97

This paper analyses the development of management buy-outs and similar transactions as an organisational innovation in the UK. Their development is situated in the context of the historical development of organisations which has previously emphasised shifts from family capitalism sto managerial capitalism and in the context of deregulation and its implications. The paper identifies five periods of development, pre-1980, 1980–84, 1985–89, 1990–94 and 1995 onwards, and shows how the prevalent forms of buy-out have changed and adapted across these periods. The paper analyses the economic impact of buy-out type organisations in terms of financial and ecomomic performance, impact on employment, and the longevity of buy-outs as on ownership form. Two particular continuing problem areas are identified: pricing of transactions and the role of debt.     

Trade Protection During the Crisis: Does it Deter Foreign Direct Investment?

This paper looks empirically at the implications that protectionist measures implemented during the current crisis may have had for a country’s ability to attract foreign direct investment. The research utilises data on such measures that are available from Global Trade Alert, combined with bilateral FDI data between OECD countries and a large number of partner countries for 2006 to 2009. This allows us to examine the short‐run effect that protectionist measures may have had on bilateral FDI flows. The verdict from this analysis is clear: a country that implements new protectionist measures may expect that this may result in lower foreign direct investment inflows into the economy. The point estimates from our preferred specifications suggest that, depending on the empirical model, the implementation of a trade protection measure is associated with about 40 to 80 per cent lower FDI inflows. Trade protection does not appear to have any implications for the country’s FDI outflows, however. The negative effect on FDI inflows does not appear to be due to direct investment measures but rather to actions related to intellectual property rights protection and other more trade‐related measures.     

Foreign Direct Investment Policy–Friendly Business Environment in R&D Sectors: Baltic States versus Visegrad Countries

This article examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) policy on inward FDI in the Visegrad and Baltic countries. The analysis of business environment highlights that the countries in both regions attempt to create a friendly business environment by means of similar methods. However, the countries in both regions focus on fiscal incentives such as taxes, which do not play a major role in attracting inward FDI in R&D. The results of attracting FDI are better in the Visegrad countries, which implement financial incentives toward inward FDI along with fiscal incentives. According to empirical analysis, it is noticed that a higher intervention level and a higher support level guarantee the volume of inward FDI. The country's introduced FDI policy enables it to orient industry and to implement economic strategic targets. FDI policy does have an impact on promoting the development of the entire country.     

Factors Favoring Greece’s Inward Foreign Direct Investment in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis: An Exploratory Survey

Greece has suffered the worst from the late 2000s global financial crisis. Despite the completion of the economic adjustment program the rate of recovery in Greece is still weak. The liquidity constraints in the Greek economy imply that the investment shock, which will accelerate its recovery rate, will be an outcome of investment inflows by privatizations and/or other opportunities arising to foreign investors (inward FDI) due to the devaluation of the assets in Greece caused by the crisis. However, the level of attracted by the Greek economy has always been well below the European Union average. This paper investigates the factors favoring inward FDI in Greece after the crisis. A survey is made by the use of a questionnaire for the collection of primary data on the activity of multinationals in Greece and non-parametric methods are used for investigating the attractiveness of the Greek market and the decision to invest.     

Seven Sectors:Investment Focuses in the Future

Mr.ZhangHanye,anexpertwiththeStateDevelopmentandPlanningCommitteepredictsthatChinawillhavesevenkeysectorsattractinginvestmentinthefirst10yearsofthe21stcentury.Theyareinfrastructureconstruction,environmentalprotectionengineering,culturaleducation,keye...     

The evolution of private equity: corporate restructuring in the UK,c.1945–2010

The article analyses the role of private equity (PE) in restructuring the UK corporate economy. It develops a theoretical synthesis to show that the evolution of the PE industry and firms in which it invested were governed by the relations of corporate governance between investor and investee companies. Effective governance relations were a necessary condition for success and complement firm specific resources to create competitive advantage. Four case studies are used to show the contrasting effects of these determining factors, Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (ICFC) and Slater Walker, and the two waves of buy-out centred restructuring that developed with the maturity of the PE industry after 1980. In contrast to the evolutionary approach, the periodisations utilised in this study show that structural breaks associated with points of institutional reform are also necessary to make firm specific resource and governance determinants of competitive advantage operable.     

Can Globalisation and Global Localisation Explain Foreign Direct Investment? Japanese Firms in Europe

This paper uses logit regression on the responses of 383 Japanese manufacturing firms located in the member countries of the European Union to investigate the motives for foreign direct investment. Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) data, as published in their 8th Annual Survey (October 1992) classified by industry, were used. The results confirm that decisions leading to FDI cannot be explained by a single factor and, furthermore, different types of FDI are influenced by different combinations of motives.     

Ownership,financial strategy and performance: the Lancashire cotton textile industry, 1918–1938

This article assesses the validity of John Maynard Keynes' claim that the Lancashire cotton industry failed to restructure because the banks as debt holders prevented firms exiting the industry, creating persistent over-capacity. Using case studies from a substantial sample of Lancashire firms, the article explores archival evidence to establish their financial characteristics, to examine their equity and debt finance and the governance roles of directors and outside ownerhip groups. On the basis of this review the article develops hypotheses to suggest alternatives to the view that bank debt was the dominant explantion of firm level behaviour and industry failure. Applying these to a statistical dataset, results show that syndicates of local shareholders, not banks, were an important impediment to the exit of firms. Moreover, syndicates milked firms of any profits through dividends, thereby limiting reinvestment and re-equipment possibilities. Our results show that where laissez-faire fails in response to a crisis, incumbent investors, particularly block-holders, can be an important impediment to corporate restructuring.     

“Watch that Space! The County Hierarchy in Firm Births and Deaths in the UK, 1980–1999”

The paper investigates the relationships between registrations, de-registrations and population density at county level in the UK using VAT data for 20 years over the period 1980–1999. The rationale for this is based on the need to understand how the extent to which, in different parts of the UK, differences in the relationship between birth rates and death rates combine to produce an interpretable pattern in net birth rates. The analysis of the net birth rate shows that a strategy aimed at the net birth rate might, in principle, just as well aim at reducing business failure, rather than raising the birth rate. Indeed this might be more efficient, since it implies that less start-ups are “wasted^” as it would avoid the necessity, if targets are to be reached, of encouraging those individuals who are patently unsuited to running their own business into business ownership.