Reverse importing and asymmetric trade and FDI: a networks explanation

This paper considers the impact of business and social networks on international trade and FDI. I propose that differences in the strength of network effects across countries can produce asymmetric trade and investment flows that may lead to trade friction. A firm from a country with strong network effects has a cost advantage in selling to buyers from its own country. This advantage results in lower inward FDI, lower total imports but larger volumes of reverse imports into the country with strong network effects. The model’s predictions match observed asymmetric trade and investment flows that sometimes lead to US-Japan trade friction.     

Does foreign direct investment promote institutional development in Africa?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Africa have increased since the turn of the millennium, mainly due to FDI growth into African countries by multinational enterprises (MNEs) from developing economies. While African governments view this growth as a positive development for the continent, many governments in the West have raised concerns regarding the institutional impact of investments from developing economies. This paper examines the impact of FDI flows on institutional quality in African countries by distinguishing investments from developed versus developing economies. Previous empirical studies have found a significant relationship between FDI flows and institutional quality in African countries but regard the relationship as MNEs rewarding African countries for adopting institutional reforms. However, little attention has been paid to the reverse causality, i.e. that FDI can cause an institutional change in African countries. Using bilateral greenfield FDI flows between 56 countries during 2003?2015, we find no significant FDI effect from developed and developing economies on institutional quality in host countries. However, aggregate FDI flows from developed and developing economies have a significant positive effect on host country institutional quality but differ concerning the impact's timing. In contrast, we find no significant effect of FDI flows from China on host country institutional quality. Our results are robust to alternative measures of institutional quality.     

Licensing versus direct investment: implications for economic growth

We develop a symmetric two country model of foreign direct investment (FDI) that captures the internalization decision and its implications for both the rate and magnitude of innovations. When mode choice (licensing versus FDI) is fixed, a subsidy to multinational production increases the rate but decreases the size of innovations. When mode can switch, the rate and size of innovations both increase, provided the subsidy is not too large. Although innovation size decreases for industries where firms already were choosing FDI, innovation size increases for industries where firms switch from licensing to FDI because multinationals choose larger innovations than licensors.     

Endogenous market structures and the gains from foreign direct investment

This paper discusses the gains from liberalizing foreign direct investment (FDI) in a two-country setting with endogenous market structure. We investigate two different scenarios. In the first scenario, headquarters costs are large in the foreign country so that the industry is located in the domestic country only. In this case, multinational and national firms may coexist and market concentration may make FDI welfare improving for the foreign country and welfare reducing for the domestic country. In the second scenario, headquarters costs are symmetric and firms will be located in both countries. Here, profitable FDI activities lead to mutual welfare gains, irrespective of market structure effects.     

Real call options to enlarge foreign subsidiaries – The moderating effect of irreversibility on the influence of economic volatility and political instability on subsequent FDI

This paper develops a real option model to explain the decision of enlarging a new foreign subsidiary by subsequent investment. The model is tested on a panel of 1148 subsidiaries in 22 host countries. The findings complement the traditional process model of firm internationalization. Rather than abiding by an incremental pattern of investment, internationalizing firms seem to keep foreign investment strategies flexible and build up their subsidiaries contingent upon the interaction of economic volatility and irreversibility of investment. However, the moderating effect of irreversibility on the relationship between uncertainty and investment may not hold for downside risks such as political instability.     

国际直接投资的就业结构效应研究——基于东道国视角

国际直接投资引起了世界各国经济和社会的变革,其中一个重要的方面就是对各国国内就业的影响和冲击。本文以东道国为视角,通过理论模型和计量分析两种方法,重点研究FDI对东道国国内就业结构的影响。研究表明,FDI对东道国就业结构具有深刻影响,这种影响取决于各部门所占的劳动比例、各部门中劳动生产率对劳动的弹性以及FDI在各部门中所占的比例;FDI对中国就业结构优化有着积极的促进作用。     

跨国企业对外直接投资市场进入的关键性策略新探

跨国公司市场进入方式多样。当前中国的跨国企业应当根据企业发展规律和国际市场变化,选择恰当的进入策略。即应注意从多角度考虑合理选择新建投资与跨国并购;国际战略联盟;生产一体化等可行策略。     

A knowledge-and-physical-capital model of international trade flows, foreign direct investment, and multinational enterprises

This paper addresses two important issues at the nexus of the literatures on international trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign affiliate sales (FAS), and multinational enterprises (MNEs). First, the introduction of a third internationally-mobile factor (physical capital) to the standard 2 × 2 × 2 “knowledge-capital” model of MNEs with skilled and unskilled labor allows us to resolve fairly readily the puzzle in the modern MNE literature that foreign affiliate sales among two identical economies completely displace their international trade. Intra-industry trade and intra-industry FDI (and FAS) can coexist for national and multinational firms (with identical productivities) in identical countries. Second, the introduction also of a third country to the model suggests a formal N-country theoretical rationale for estimating gravity equations of bilateral FDI flows and FAS, in a manner consistent with estimating gravity equations for bilateral trade flows.     

国际直接投资的新思维——实物期权思想的融入

全球化经济时代的到来 ,为经济理论提出了新课题 ,FDI作为跨国经营的主要形式成为研究重点。实物期权理论在评估高风险、高灵活性的投资项目时有不可替代的作用 ,而FDI恰恰属于此类投资项目。将实物期权思想融入FDI理论 ,不仅解释了FDI近来快速增长的现象 ,也为FDI理论开辟了新的研究领域     

A quantitative approach to multinational production

I examine new data on the number and revenues of foreign affiliates of multinational firms across a large number of country pairs. The data shed light on the behavior of the intensive and extensive margins of multinational production (MP). To capture the patterns observed in the data, I build and calibrate a multi-country general-equilibrium model of MP that combines a Lucas (1978) span-of-control with an Eaton and Kortum (2002) type model, and includes both fixed and variable costs of opening affiliates abroad. I use the calibrated model to calculate the gains that a country would experience from liberalizing access to foreign firms. Those calculations suggest that the welfare losses of closing up to foreign firms would be around 4%, while the gains of liberalizing access to foreign firms would be large, particularly if the variable – rather than the fixed – component of MP costs were lowered.     

FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa: A longitudinal perspective on location-specific factors (2003–2010)

This paper examines the characteristics of Location Specific Factors (LSFs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regarding inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of 758 MNEs in 2003, 1216 in 2005 and 2402 in 2010 is used to compare the variability in LSFs in ten, 15 and 19 SSA countries respectively. We find firstly the most powerful factors, influencing the political-economy and trade dynamics of hosts to FDI, stable over time. Secondly, by 2010, production inputs become the most important factor for FDI followed by political-economic stability. This result reflects findings in International Business (IB) literature. Policy implications point to unwavering need by SSA to reduce transaction costs for FDI; increase the predictability of the policy environment; and increase the productivity-adjusted cost efficiency of inputs.     

Seeking greener pastures: a theoretical and empirical investigation into the changing trend of foreign direct investment flows in response to institutional and strategic factors

A generic theoretical model is proposed that provides a holistic conceptualization of the phenomenon of changing trend of FDI flows. Integrating both institutional and strategic factors, a rationale for such a change is provided, and the circumstances under which future shifts might take place are identified. A collection of criteria and incentives that various host governments and their agencies must provide to attract FDI are outlined. Several propositions that lead to empirically testable hypotheses are developed from this model. Statistical evidence is then provided of a shift in FDI flows, and the change in their determinants, by empirically analyzing investment by US multinational enterprises into Western Europe and Asia over the 20-year period, 1981–2000.     

Foreign direct investment in the banking sector: the case of Italian banks in the '90s

The present paper addresses the issue of the determinants of the growth of multinational banks upon foreign markets at a micro individual level. Theories and approaches suggested so far about globalisation of the banking sector basically relate banks' international growth to the theory of the multinational enterprise. Accordingly, this paper relies on the eclectic paradigm, which views the foreign direct investment decision to be a combination of ownership, internalisation and location advantages. Empirical evidence is provided through an econometric model based on count data techniques, with reference to the Italian case in the decade 1989–1999. Results show that the availability of resources and international experience already gathered by the parent banks have positive effects on their decision to undertake direct investments abroad. Multinational banks are also proved to grow internationally in order to internalise their pre-existing bank–client relationships, and to locate their foreign units where they can exploit positive externalities related to the presence of important international financial centres.     

Old problems remain, new ones crop up: Political risk in the 21 century

Despite the fact that most developing countries now generally welcome multinational companies, political risk still represents a huge concern for international business. In fact, multinational companies today probably face a much broader array of risks than during the nationalization wave of the 1960s and 1970s. To substantiate this claim, a theoretical framework is presented herein which outlines the key causal relationships in the political risk landscape. It is explained why a discernible attitude change in the developing and emerging world does not necessarily equal a reduced overall level of political risk. To illustrate the framework and the complexity of the political risk phenomenon, a number of recent case examples are presented from the international bauxite and aluminium industry—an industry whose wide-ranging value chain, international focus, global significance, and natural exposure to risks make it very suitable for analysis. The conceptual discussion and the empirical examples presented in this article suggest that political risk is now surely a highly complex, multidimensional phenomenon. This trait poses major challenges for the global business community, particularly in terms of accurately assessing these risks.     

Playing away to win at home

This paper presents a model of the interaction between two rival firms based in the same country. Each firm must decide how to serve a foreign market (export or foreign production) and how much to invest in a corporate-wide asset that reduces production costs and/or augments the willingness-to-pay for their product. In this scenario, the firms’ foreign direct investment decisions are interdependent. Furthermore, strategic motives for FDI relate to a firm's domestic, as well as foreign, market profits. One possibility is that a firm sets up overseas production even though its foreign market profits would be higher by exporting.     

基于知识结构的跨国公司子公司成长战略研究

基于知识结构的子公司成长实质上是子公司内外部知识积累互动、优化知识结构的过程。知识基及其构成是子公司成长的内在基本条件;母合知识结构及其外部知识结构的互动是子公司成长的真正机理;子公司知识结构的变化为其成长提供了可能。基于知识结构的子公司成长战略有利于我国企业与跨国公司人力资源和知识网络的有效嫁接,能够促进我国企业的持续快速成长。     

外国直接投资、外国证券投资与经济增长:以美国为例

本文以美国1972-2002年的统计数据为例,在建立VAR模型的基础上通过脉冲响应曲线和方差分解表对流入美国的外国直接投资(FDI)、外国证券投资(FPI)和经济增长之间的关系进行了实证研究,结果表明流入美国的FDI和FPI均有助于美国经济的增长。但相对而言,美国经济增长更加依赖于外国证券投资,研究还发现流入美国的FDI与FPI之间关系紧密,两者之间存在积极的良性互动关系,且FPI对FDI的影响明显大于FDI对FPI的影响。