The Determinants of Intra-European Foreign Direct Investment Flows: Market Integration and Policy Issues

SUMMARY

This paper reviews the literature on the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the European Community (EC), especially the few studies concerned with intra-European FDI. It applies international business theory to investigate the determinants of FDI flows within the EC over the period 1984–89. The key results are that the models found contrast with the standard US-EC literature, and also differ within the EC. Real variables assume the greatest importance, although financial variables do appear significant. The pattern of findings suggests that the growth of intra-EC FDI is linked to the adoption of a pan-European FDI strategy by EC firms, largely prompted by EC market integration.     

Quantitative and Dynamic Analysis of the Oli Variables Determining Fdi in China

The main determinants of foreign direct investment in China are analyzed quantitatively and dynamically based on Dunning's eclectic theory and empirical models corresponding to location-specific advantages, ownership-specific advantages and internalization advantage. More specifically, the correlation between each OLI variable and FDI is tested and explained in detail. It is concluded that monopolistic advantages of technology and management experience of foreign investors along with China's low labor cost and great market potential might be important factors attracting FDI in China. In addition, using an internal market to establish a network of international production might also be an important determinant for foreigners to directly invest in China. Others might include searching for attractive yields available in equity investment, devaluation of the Chinese currency, distance, culture and global business strategies.     

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE IMPACT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT LOCATION (COUNTRY) CHOICE? A REVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA

Despite a longstanding debate, at both a theoretical and empirical level, research on the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and intellectual property rights (IPRs) remains scant and ambiguous. As a result, the link between IPR strength and multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) propensity to invest is unproven and seemingly dependent on a number of factors. We critically review the theory and evidence of the influence of IPRs on FDI and MNEs’ investment location (country) decisions both to ‘take stock’ of existing knowledge of this relationship and, by identifying gaps in, and shortcomings of prior work, develop a fruitful research agenda. We find that existing empirical work on the IPR–FDI nexus, though skewed in favour of a positive relationship between IPR protection and FDI, is fragmented, inconclusive and unable to square the conflicting theoretical predictions on how the strength of IPRs can affect MNEs’ FDI location decisions. Several issues and challenges are highlighted to explain the difficulties of the collective body of past empirical work to provide a definite answer to the question of the impact of IPRs on FDI, from which valuable recommendations are proposed to guide future applied research.     

Dividend reinvestment plans and Pecking Order capital structure behavior: An empirical investigation

Due to the asymmetric information effect, corporations have been reluctant to use external sources of equity capital. The adoption of dividend reinvestment plans (DRP) by large numbers of firms may indicate an alternative way to raise external equity funds. It has been shown that many factors may explain a firm’s decision concerning the source of the shares made available to DRP participants. The hypothesis to be tested is that the nature of the DRP actually selected may be predicted by financial characteristics such as cash flow generation, investment needs, historical dividend policy, firm ownership structure and firm capital structure. Using logistic regression analysis, results of joint tests of financial variables suggested by the Pecking Order Theory of capital structure indicate significant support for the hypothesis. Specifically, ownership structure, historical dividend policy and debt ratio are found to be key determinants of the type of DRP utilized.     

The MNE investment location decision: Some empirical evidence

Factors governing MNE investment are typically divided into three groups-infrastructural variables, location-specific risk factors and government policy variables. The first objective of this paper is to assess the influence of these factors on MNE location decisions. The second objective is to test whether government participation in location tournaments (whereby local governments offer incentives to MNEs to influence their location decisions) is worthwhile. Arthur (1986,1990) points out that such participation is worthwhile if government policy has irreversible effects that persist after policy is withdrawn. In the estimation of the model, neither risk nor infrastructural factors are found to have a significant effect on the MNE investment location decision. However, there seems to be some evidence indicating that past investment decisions tend to have irreversible effects. Thus, government participation in location tournaments may be worthwhile.     

What drives credit risk in the Indian banking industry? An empirical investigation

Using a two-step system GMM approach on a unique bank-level dataset for the period 1998/99–2013/14, this paper tries to explore the key determinants of credit risk in the Indian banking industry. The main premise of this paper is that, along with regulatory and institutional factors, both macroeconomic and bank-specific variables influence the formation of credit risk in a banking system, and their influences vary across ownership groups. The empirical findings suggest that lower profitability, more diversification in the banking business, the large size of banks and a higher concentration of banks in lending increase the probability of defaults in India. We find a significant degree of persistence in credit risk, and the observed persistence is higher in the gross non-performing loans (NPLs) specification relative to what has been observed in the net NPLs specification. In the case of public sector banks, NPLs are more sensitive to internal bank-specific factors, while for private and foreign banks, macroeconomic and industry-related factors play a significant role in determining credit risk. Our results are robust for different panel data estimation models and sub-samples of ownership groups. The findings of this paper provide important insights into the formation of default risk in the banking system of an emerging market economy.     

Foreign Direct Investment in China: Determinants and Effects

This paper attempts to assess the determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in China and its effects on the whole economy. After presenting the main theoretical contributions and the previous works done about China’s inward-FDI, an empirical study has been implemented extending the previous ones with a different data set (more recent) and with different methodologies. The traditional determinants of FDI seem to be relevant for China: domestic market size, cost advantages and openness to the rest of the world. Concerning the consequences of FDI on the Chinese economy, our empirical evidence supports the view that FDI affects China’s growth through the diffusion of ideas. Through the introduction of new ideas, multinational firms develop technical progress and hence long-run economic growth. The transmission of ideas seems to have had a positive effect on the Chinese growth. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Robust drivers of Bitcoin price movements: An extreme bounds analysis

There is a growing stream of empirical research that endeavors to identify the influential variables contributing to the price formation of cryptocurrencies and, in particular, Bitcoin. However, results of those studies generally remain inconsistent in terms of not only the true combination of factors that affect Bitcoin prices, but also the nature of effects (positive vs. negative) that each individual factor has on the price behavior. The present study investigates the robustness of a wide variety of candidate determinants that have been the focus of attention in relevant literature. Our inquiry relies on the extreme bounds analysis (EBA), which is a type of large-scale sensitivity analysis capable of addressing model uncertainty issues. The findings suggest that crypto market forces of supply and demand, public interest, and economic policy uncertainty are the only variables robust to all possible variations in the conditioning information set. Our evidence argues in favor of the predominance of cryptocurrency-related determinants over global macroeconomic and financial ones in explaining Bitcoin price movements.     

Agency costs in the banking industry: An examination of ownership behavior,leverage and dividend policies

This paper examines agency theory arguments in the banking industry by analyzing the effect of four variables that proxy for agency costs—earnings volatility, managers' portfolio diversification losses, bank size, and standard deviation of bank equity returns—on the three financial policy variables of managerial stock ownership, leverage, and dividend yield. It is one of the first studies that examines the determination of financial policy variables, in light of agency concerns, in the banking industry. The study examines the largest 104 U.S. banks during the period 1985–1989. Evidence suggests that bank size and a measure of the managers' portfolio diversification opportunity set affect the bank's level of managerial stock ownership, leverage and dividends.     

Explaining interviewer effects and respondent behavior: Theoretical models and empirical analysis

The behavior of respondents in interview situations has been dealt on the one hand with respect to many empirical studies and on the other hand in connection with different theoretical approaches (Hyman 1954; Cannell & Kahn 1968). In this paper the most relevant theoretical explanations are discussed and systematized from the point of view of the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein 1980). Whereas this theory program has been used in many substantive fields, it has rarely been applied to the problem of interviewer effects and response sets. In this approach one assumes that the actors in interview situations decide according to cost-benefit calculations. The theory of reasoned action is viewed as an operationalized theory, discussed in more detail and formalized via structural equation models. These models are empirically tested with the data of a survey specifically designed to perform such a method study. The reported contact rates of German with foreigners is the dependent variable under study. First, a model without interviewer variables is tested to explain respondent behavior in terms of norms, attitudes and some other determinants. Then the status and the age of interviewers are introduced as situational determinants of the respondents' behavior. For subgroup analyses the respondents are divided into three groups varying in the amount of the need for social approval. The models are tested according to two subgroups (low and high need for social approval) with the technique of multiple group comparison in LISREL (Jöreskog/Sörbom 1988). All models and results are interpreted in terms of the theory of reasoned action. At the end some conclusions for modelling interviewer effects and respondent behavior are discussed.     

Regional growth and interstate migration

The current study examines a simultaneous equation model of interstate migration using income growth, employment growth, unemployment growth, population growth, gross migration, and employment in manufacturing as endogenous variables. The results show that neither the growth of employment nor the growth of income in the destination location has been directly important determinants of migration flow. However, an indirect effect through the population variable can be discerned for these variables, and this has important policy implications. A key feature of this migration model is that it incorporates most of the determinant factors as rates of change over time. The study sheds light on the joint and indirect effects of migration and other endogenous variables and draws some important policy implications pertaining to growth.     

Deciding between alternative approaches in macroeconomics

Macroeconomic time-series data are aggregated, inaccurate, non-stationary, collinear and rarely match theoretical concepts. Macroeconomic theories are incomplete, incorrect and changeable: location shifts invalidate the law of iterated expectations and ‘rational expectations’ are then systematically biased. Empirical macro-econometric models are non-constant and mis-specified in numerous ways, so economic policy often has unexpected effects, and macroeconomic forecasts go awry. In place of using just one of the four main methods of deciding between alternative models, theory, empirical evidence, policy relevance and forecasting, we propose nesting ‘theory-driven’ and ‘data-driven’ approaches, where theory-models’ parameter estimates are unaffected by selection despite searching over rival candidate variables, longer lags, functional forms, and breaks. Thus, theory is retained, but not imposed, so can be simultaneously evaluated against a wide range of alternatives, and a better model discovered when the theory is incomplete.     

Foreign direct investment and financial markets influences: Results from the United States

This paper investigates the linkages among Foreign Direct Investment (FDI-greenfield and mergers and acquisitions (M&A)) decisions and equity market returns and volatilities. The central premise is that FDI decisions by Multinational Enterprises (MNE) are influenced, among other factors, by risk and uncertainty indicated by equity market returns and volatilities in the destination (host) countries. This is because of the events on the stock markets in general, and their volatilities, in particular, signal the vitality of the investment climate of the target country. Including capital market variables among the determinants of FDI is important for assessing the cost of capital and for evaluating direct investment and asset allocation decisions.Secondary time-series data (quarterly) were used on incoming US FDI from 1994 to 2018 along with data on independent variables such as exchange rates, inflation, market size, equity market returns, and equity market volatilities. Thus, the paper endeavors to contribute to the International Business literature by highlighting the role played of equity returns and volatilities in FDI decisions and therewith attempts to integrate finance (capital markets) with International Business/Strategic Decision making. Several different regression specifications (OLS, Fixed, and random-effects and VAR) were utilized to analyze the data, and capital market variables (stock returns and volatilities) were found to influence the location of production facilities by a multinational enterprise (MNE). In other words, the share of production capacity optimally located abroad, as well as M&A decisions, are influenced by capital market returns and volatilities.     

WHEN OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE MATTERS: A REVIEW OF THE EFFECTS OF INVESTOR HORIZON ON CORPORATE POLICIES

This paper surveys the literature on the impact of investor horizon on corporate policies. While the desire to encourage long-term investor ownership is shared among managers, boards and policy makers, how greater long-term investor ownership benefits corporate decisions and ultimately firm performance is still under academic investigation. The contribution of this paper is twofold. The paper's first contribution is providing an up-to-date review of theoretical and empirical findings. This paper introduces the groups of long-term and short-term investors and the related classification methodologies and investor horizon proxies used to form them. It further reviews the determinants of an investor's horizon. Then, this paper organizes the literature on the impact of investor horizon on corporate policies around three main channels: the short-term pressure hypothesis, the monitoring hypothesis, and the catering hypothesis. The paper's second contribution is identifying six major challenges ahead that need to be addressed to improve the understanding of the impact of long-term (short-term) investor ownership on corporates policies. These challenges represent opportunities for further research.     

Technology sourcing and outward FDI: A study of IT industry in India

Dunning’s eclectic or the OLI framework suggests that MNCs exist and grow due to possession of ownership (O) advantages consisting of the tangible and intangible assets of the firm (including technology); location (L) advantages consisting of production factors such as transportation, infrastructure, and human and natural resources available in the host country; and internalisation (I) advantages owing to firm’s competitive advantage in producing internally rather than selling or licensing technologies to others. There are several studies that have analysed MNCs of developed country origin from the perspective of both developed (home) and other developed or developing (host) countries. Recently, however, MNCs from developing countries are also making their presence felt in the world. Yet, there are hardly any studies that analyse MNCs of developing country origin.Using data on 130 firms from the high-tech Information Technology (IT) industry of India, we investigate whether ownership advantages (O), as proposed in the eclectic theory, holds true for the presence of MNCs from developing countries. Specifically, we analyse whether firm-specific technological advantages generated through differential technology sourcing at home (India) are important in determining inter-firm differences in the decision to invest abroad. The technological sources considered are in-house R&D efforts, import of designs, drawing and blueprints, and import of capital goods. The study reveals that in-house R&D efforts are indeed important for the firms to invest abroad. Size and export intensity of the firm also influence the decision of the firm to invest abroad. The study recommends a proper innovation and resource management strategy for developing country firms for efficient allocation of resources, technology sourcing, and technology assimilation.     

Foreign direct investment: A genetic algorithm approach

This paper proposes a genetic algorithm (GA) approach as an analytical tool with a carefully defined fitness function for variable selection. Discriminant analysis will be used as a parameter evaluation method for the analysis of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in China. Results indicate that the proposed GA method is more efficient in classifying “successful or unsuccessful” inward FDI by providing higher accuracy rates while using fewer variables than previous efforts. An implication of this result is that, given a scarcity of resources and the need to promote FDI, the proposed GA may provide a more efficient way to concentrate on those fewer variables found to be important determinants of “successful” FDI inflow.     

我国企业风险监测与预警体系构建

行为资产定价等传统风险监测模型的提出和发展,对企业运用风险管理理论进行风险监测具有重要的指导和推动作用。由于诸多不确定因素的存在,各类风险监测模型均体现出各自所独有的优势及不足,国内企业在实际应用中应认真分析自身所处的内部和外部环境,选择适合自己的方法。具体可基于宏观经济风险、泡沫经济风险、国债风险、外资风险等层面设计相应指标,从企业自身经营环境中获取指标体系中各监测指标的具体数值,进而依据综合评价值对风险的水平与程度进行预警预报。     

Universities’ efficiency and the socioeconomic characteristics of their environment — Evidence from an empirical analysis

This paper investigates how the efficiency of universities is affected by the characteristics of the territory in which they operate. The theoretical framework combines two perspectives: (1) the resource dependence theory, suggesting that the location of university can determine the amount of resources available to it; (2) institutional isomorphism, according to which the characteristics of other higher education institutions located in the same area may shape the university production function and the efficiency of its operations. In order to test this framework we use data on Russian universities and a non-parametric conditional order-m efficiency estimator with two categories of contextual variables. The first group includes the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the region where the university is located, while the second deal with the characteristics of other higher education institutions located in the same region. The main contribution of this paper is that it applies efficiency models that incorporate exogenous factors associated with a geographical area in context of higher education. Our findings highlight that the managerial efficiency of universities is strongly associated with the contextual factors of the environment in which they are embedded. Important policy implication of this result is that different public policies in higher education should treat particular universities differently depending on characteristics of context in which they operate.     

The Mystery of Regional Unemployment Differentials: Theoretical and Empirical Explanations

Abstract.  This paper provides an integrated overview of theoretical and empirical explanations used in the applied literature on regional unemployment differentials. On the basis of 41 empirical studies, four different model types covering nine theoretical constructs of regional unemployment determination and 13 sets of explanatory variables are identified. The overall conclusion is that theoretical and empirical explanations help to reduce the weaknesses in each other. While theory is found to predict that the regional unemployment rate depends on labour supply factors (a collection of factors which affect natural changes in the labour force, labour force participation, migration and commuting), labour demand factors and wage‐setting factors, it is the empirical studies that provide a more profound understanding of the explanatory variables involved. Conversely, whereas most empirical studies provide clear‐cut explanations for the signs of the explanatory variables, it is theory that shows that some of these explanations might be out of proportion. By grouping many studies together, this paper shows that there are indeed clear‐cut trends.     

WHU Invitation and Call for Applications

Abstract

The discussion reinforces and expands on some of the fundamental issues about endogeneity raised by Chenhall and Moers (European Accounting Review, this issue, pp. 173–195). We focus on the econometric problems researchers encounter when investigating the performance effects of some endogenous firm choice. Our points are illustrated using the classic research question about the relation between managerial equity ownership and firm value. We consider cases where ownership is treated as an exogenous, endogenous and ‘partially’ endogenous variable. We argue treating ownership as an exogenous variable is seriously flawed. Unfortunately, when ownership is at least partially endogenous, it is necessary for empirical researchers to identify exogenous variables that are the determinants of the ownership choice. This calls for better theory to guide the empirical work.