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How does organized crime affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries? Some research examines the effects of crime, such as homicide rates, on FDI. However, we know little about how organized crime in particular might affect such investment. This paper examines organized crime and FDI in Mexican states between 2000 and 2018. This case is important because Mexico is one of the top global recipients of FDI. At the same time, criminal violence has killed hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico in recent years, and scholars seek to understand the violence's wider effects. We explain how organized crime competition, as opposed to crime generally, should shape investors' decisions. Analyses using original data on criminal organization territory find that higher numbers of criminal groups are associated with lower levels of new FDI. Other measures of crime, such as homicide rates or crime rates, are not associated with foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic terrorism. Using a cross-national, time-series analysis of 114 countries from 1991–2017, and employing structural equation modeling to test a number of mediating factors, we find that the impact of FDI on domestic terrorism depends on the host state's level of economic development. For host countries at higher-income levels, FDI boosts economic development and global integration promoting prosperity, increasing counterterrorism resources, and reducing the economic grievances that foster terrorism. Conversely, for lower-income host countries, increased FDI fuels higher domestic terrorism, as it intensifies clashes between traditional and modern elements within society, raises economic discrimination, heightens perceptions of economic insecurity, and subsequently leads to grievances directed against the state. Our results indicate a curvilinear relationship between FDI inflows and domestic terrorism, suggesting that FDI produces a double-edged sword between promoting economic development and increasing domestic terrorism in host states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption in the host nation is a key issue influencing foreign direct investment. Most existing studies use the expert-knowledge-based corruption index as a proxy for corruption. However, the validity of these published corruption indexes is often questioned by scholars and experts. By introducing Internet data to evaluate public corruption awareness levels, this paper uses two different corruption proxy variables to investigate the relationship between host country corruption and China's OFDI. In addition, these relationships are further compared between the Belt and Road (B&R) countries and non-B&R countries. The empirical results show that there are negative correlations between host country corruption and China's OFDI flow for the whole sample, B&R countries and non-B&R countries. The empirical results of this paper serve as a reference for Chinese enterprises to make overseas investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can generate important knowledge spillovers on local economies, fostering regional innovation, especially in developing countries. In this paper, we analyze how regional industrial structure shapes the effects of inward FDI spillovers on the innovative performance of Brazilian regions. Prior literature has analyzed the effects of FDI spillovers on the productivity of host countries' firms, while less attention has been given to the corresponding effects on regional innovation. Thus, we use data on the investments of Multinational Companies in Brazilian regions for 2003-2014 and relate these data to the innovative performance measured by patents. Our results show that inward FDI positively influences innovation at the regional level since Brazilian regions that receive inward FDI present stronger innovative performance. In addition, the positive effects of inward FDI on local innovation are reinforced by the diversity of the regional industrial structure. Diversified regions that receive inward FDI are therefore better able to leverage the benefits of inward FDI spillovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do foreign investors have subnational political preferences? The political economy of foreign direct investment (FDI) involves not only choosing among host countries, but also the subnational location of the assets. However, factors affecting investors' decisions about subnational location likely differ from the ones affecting international investment. This paper studies the effect of state-level partisanship on new FDI inflows to Mexican states. I argue that investors prefer states ruled by left-wing governors because they are more likely to invest in human capital. Statistical analyses using new data on subnational allocation of FDI in Mexican states between 1999 and 2017 support the main hypothesis. Given the persistence of authoritarian enclaves in Mexico, I also disentangle the effects of partisanship from subnational democratization. The partisan effect is independent from party turnover and political competition at the subnational level, and it is robust to different model specifications and estimation strategies. Additional evidence supports the plausibility of the argued mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary large-scale real estate developments often have an explicit transnational character. Particularly in late development contexts, they are frequently financed and developed by foreign stakeholders. United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based transnational developers have been the largest global providers of greenfield real estate foreign direct investment (GREFDI) between 2003 and 2014. A closer look at these activities, however, reveals that only a limited percentage of the announced projects eventually materialized. Based on a thorough study of several academic articles, online media coverage, and interviews conducted with real estate experts in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 2018, this paper critically evaluates the current status of transnational real estate development projects (TREDs) announced by the UAE companies in the early 21st century, as well as the most common implementation strategies and rationales behind them. It illustrates how closely geopolitics, geo-economics, and real estate can be intertwined, especially when transnational developers are closely related to their home governments. Against this backdrop, TREDs are often a part of broader bilateral business deals, and can simultaneously be driven by the desire of acquiring symbolic capital on behalf of the political actors involved. Furthermore, it is concluded that TREDs that are facilitated by UAE-based developers are fairly similar to contemporary TREDS on behalf of government-related developers from other emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we conduct a detailed examination of the effects of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and the technology gap on local technology dissemination and spillovers. Using unique firm level data from surveys among FDI firms and domestic producer firms and a random sample of their suppliers in the North East of Mexico, we present new evidence showing that the effects of FDI and the technology gap are multi-faceted. FDI firms are significantly more involved in technology transfers. Their suppliers are more likely to experience positive spillovers, even when we control for the support that they receive. A large technology gap has a negative effect on technology diffusion. However, suppliers of FDI firms are more likely to receive several types of technology transfer when the technology gap with their client firms is large. As for local spillovers, we find that a large technology gap fosters positive spillovers, especially among suppliers of FDI firms and among those suppliers that are best suited to absorb new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the role language distance plays on the choice between greenfield investments and acquisitions when investing abroad. Based on transaction cost theory, the paper focuses on the impact of language distance on ex ante and ex post costs in international acquisition processes. In order to empirically test our predictions, a database of foreign direct investments made by listed Spanish firms was used. Empirical results point towards a tendency to avoid acquisitions as investment mode in international contexts characterized by high language distance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This section presents abstracts of papers on city planning published from 2007 to 2008, including "Streets, Sounds and Identity in Inter-war Harlem," by Clare Corbould, "(Re)making the Other, Heterosexualising Everyday Space," by Kath Browne, and "Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds," by Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder.