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The recognition that one publication receives from another is a citation. The nature of these references (citations), their variability and the drivers of the citations concerning the subject of foreign investment in agribusiness are unknown. Consequently, we investigated the nature, variability, and drivers of the citations in the writings on foreign investment in agribusiness. We used 406 studies extracted from Google Scholar through Publish or Perish Software and modeled with a twopart regression analysis. The results show that peer-reviewed publications, age of publication, full text in Google scholar, collaborative publications and self-citation enhance citations. Review articles and publishing in journals with impact factors do not promote citations. To make an impact through citations, authors and funders must focus on peer review, full text, and collaborative publications and engage in self-citation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of outsourcing and offshoring have driven the changing spatial divisions of labour through foreign investment and development of peripheral regions into key offshore destinations for business services. This paper focuses on the role of elites, transnational and domestic, in the transformation of Romania into a major business services offshoring location in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) over the last two decades. The paper reveals the role of elite agency in connecting domestic resources to business services global production networks (GPNs) in order to drive domestic institutional transformation. A lot has been written about the agency of labour; yet there is a gap in our understanding of the agency of elites, specifically how transnational elites articulate with other elites at the national-, meso- and micro-level and produce institutional changes. Drawing on literature on enclave creation and dual economies, the paper illustrates how the alliance between domestic and transnational elites shaped transformation across the sector by implementing labour market flexibilisation and by crafting a 'sound' business environment in terms of infrastructure, investment incentives and bureaucratic framework to emulate institutional conditions of the home country. The development of the Romanian business services sector into an 'enclave economy' has become dependent on collaborative networks with domestic universities and intermediary organisations, which played a key role in facilitating foreign investment attraction and linking domestic resources to the needs of multinational firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on the relationship between economic coercion and foreign direct investment suggests that sanctions have no effect on investments in targeted countries or may even encourage investment inflows. A key limitation of this research, however, is its aggregate country-level focus, which fails to capture company-level decision-making processes and factors shaping them. In contrast, this paper evaluates multinational companies' investment plans as reflected in new investment announcements and shows that sanctions in fact lead to significant adjustments in multinational companies' plans to invest in a targeted country. Our company-level analyses of new investment projects in Russia show that companies are less likely to announce new investments after the imposition of economic sanctions against the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the dynamics between trade openness and energy consumption in five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and three East Asian countries from 1980 to 2014. Previous theoretical discussions and empirical findings pointed out that trade openness had ambiguous effects on energy consumption. A panel dataset involving energy consumption per capita, trade openness, real gross domestic product per capita, gross fixed capital formation per capita and foreign direct investment was estimated. The Lagrange multiplier (LM) cross-sectional dependence test confirms the existence of cross-sectional dependence among the cross-sectional units. Moreover, the Westerlund cointegration test showed that the variables were not cointegrated. Hence, the dynamics among the variables were explored using the panel vector autoregressive method. The results suggested that there is a unidirectional Granger causality from trade openness to energy consumption. Further, the impulse response functions implied that the effect of trade openness on energy consumption occurred via the dynamics between trade openness and gross capital formation per capita. Finally, the forecast error variance decomposition showed that the contribution of trade openness on energy consumption increased during the examined period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Mainland-Hong Kong Stock (MHKS) Connect Program is used as a quasi-natural experience to study the relationship between foreign institutional investors and environmental innovation. Using the sample of the Chinese mainland A-Share market industrial firms from 2012 to 2019 and Difference-In-Difference model, we find a promoting effect of the foreign institutional investors on the mainland firms' environmental innovation. The mediating effect tests prove that foreign institutional investors inspire environmental innovation through monitoring channel (supervising the environmental innovation), insurance channel (tolerating innovation failures) and knowledge spillover channel. It is noteworthy that only firms in the regions of high innovation capacity benefit from the knowledge spillover channel. Our study implies that environmental innovation can benefit from the opening-up of the stock market if it can attract foreign institutional investors who fulfill the roles of monitoring, insurance and knowledge spillover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on economic growth in South Asian countries is investigated during 1990–2014. For this purpose, the newly developed panel data estimation method Dynamic Seemingly Unrelated Regression (DSUR) is applied. According to the results, the impact of ICTs on economic growth remains positive in South Asian economies. In addition, education stimulates economic growth; however, foreign direct investment does not contribute to economic growth. The newly acquired result would guide policymakers and government officials to focus on the advancement of ICT for maintaining the sustainable economic growth. The findings imply that South Asian countries should raise the ICT level with proper technology education level to achieve the desired economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the age of socio-ecological crises in which we live, the urgency of understanding the complicated relationship between society and nature is apparent. To achieve this, unfolding the urban metabolism of cities through metabolic flows from the perspective of urban political ecology will grow increasingly essential in the future. This paper aims to explore the concept of urban political ecology as a perspective for understanding emergence of a new urban metabolism in İstanbul in the nineteenth century through metabolic flows of water. The context of "metabolic" emphasizes labor as an agent for the very production of nature as urbanized nature through tap water, waste, and sanitation. It shows the transition and the conflict between the labor-intensive urban metabolism and capital-intensive urban metabolism of İstanbul, which started in the nineteenth century. The metabolic flows of water in terms of infrastructure were affected by the first impacts of foreign capital investments and capitalist relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of foreign fund' flow on the Indonesian stock index incorporating other variables, namely the international stock market, gold price, foreign exchange rate, and the oil price. GJR-GARCH (1,1) model is used to analyze daily time-series data on IDX, foreign fund flows, the S&P 500, and gold, currency, and oil prices from 2014 to 2019. There is an evidence of leverage effect. It means that there is an asymmetric news impact on the conditional variances. Currency and oil prices are the only variables to have an impact on the Indonesian stock market index, while the rest of the variables do not influence the index. The government may provide infrastructures to attract foreign investors. At the same time, the government has to issue the policy that will protect the economy from stock market shocks. Finally, investors may include gold in their portfolio to diversify their investments. JEL Classification: G120, G10, G40 [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]

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]

The decoupling of carbon emissions has also become the dependence of countries' development. Finance plays an important role in decoupling economic development from carbon emissions. This paper explores the impact of financial development in different regions on the decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth, using the Tapio decoupling elastic model and the method of fully modified least squares (FMOLS) to study the impact of financial development on carbon emissions in six regional panels from 1995 to 2020: and Foreign direct investment (FDI), urbanization, population, and infrastructure as control variables. The results turn out that financial development will promote the decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth in the ECA region. For EAP, SSA, AC, SA, and MENA regions, financial development will promote the growth of carbon emissions, and due to the different economic development dynamics of different countries, the positive effects of financial development on carbon emissions are heterogeneous. The impact of FDI, urbanization, and infrastructure on carbon emissions varies from region to region. The population will promote the growth of carbon emissions, regardless of the region. In addition, the ECA region is the most countries that has achieved the strong decoupling and is the first to realize the transition from weak decoupling to strong decoupling. Therefore,the ECA, EAP and AC region should accelerate the construction of a green financial system to promote the decoupling of economic growth and carbon emissions. The SSA, SA and MENA region should speed up the transformation of economic development mode and move towards weak decoupling or even strong decoupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing an institutional – FDI – economic growth lens the purpose of this paper is to identify and explain the impacts of Chinese FDI (CFDI) on host countries' economic growth. While extensive research has been undertaken regarding determinants of CFDI, little is known about the actual outcomes of CFDI in recipient countries. Based on a sample of 22 countries over the period 2003–2018, our results identify that while general flows of FDI exhibited positive impacts on host countries' economic growth, CFDI had a negative effect on host country economic growth. From the host country perspective, given the emphasis that is placed on FDI as an instrument of growth and development, our findings raise questions about what host countries are actually gaining from CFDI and the potential implications of whether pursuing the 'Beijing Consensus' as opposed to the 'Washington Consensus' is really in the long-term interests of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To figure out at what extent of China's investment in energy technology in recent years has helped economic growth and improved the environment. From the basic theory of environmental regulation's influence on energy consumption efficiency, this study uses the super-efficiency slack base model to measure the green energy efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019, and uses the kernel density function to analyze evolution trajectory. Then, the spatial Dubin model is used to test the influence of some important economic variables. The results of value show that although China's green energy efficiency improved significantly from 2010 to 2019, the overall performance was lacking. However, the overall efficiency value was significantly improved during the study period. Moreover, the efficiency value was closely related to the performance of economic development. From the dynamic trajectory perspective, efficiency values of all years show the type of "two peaks".Altough the width between the two peaks did not change noticeably, but the efficiency still had a significantly improved. In addition, according to the results of spatial economic regression analysis, eco-environmental constraints, foreign direct investment, and industrial agglomeration were not conducive to the efficiency value, while industrial structure and manufacturing enterprise scale had positive effects. In addition, the influence effects had obvious spatial phenomena. Therefore, for the Chinese government, enterprises and society, the next step is not only to vigorously exploit energy-saving and emission reduction technologies to improve energy consumption efficiency but also to establish reasonable environmental regulation policies to push enterprises to produce in a cleaner way. Additionally, a reasonable regional development plan should be established to promote the rational distribution and flow of the energy industry across different places. This paper provides a novel perspective for the study of energy input and usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impacts of the host country institutional environment on Chinese foreign direct investment in Africa. As one of the few papers to explicitly address the role of institutions on China–Africa foreign direct investment, our results highlight that countries who are able to provide a politically stable environment and control levels of corruption exert the greatest effects on Chinese foreign direct investment. After controlling for firm level motivation, the findings also reveal that as Chinese economic development evolves so does the apparent strategic direction of their investment patterns with greater attention now being given to investment quality and return on investment, rather than simply acquiring and extracting natural resources. From a policy perspective, the findings suggest three areas of development to promote increases in, and the sustainability of Chinese investment in Africa. First, the implementation of mechanisms to better control levels of corruption. Second, the promotion of long-term political stability to reduce investor uncertainty, and third, increased investment in supply-side initiatives to boost host country productivity to reflect the changing nature of Chinese investment patterns in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the impact of economic openness and institutional environment on technological innovation is of great significance for China to build a new system of open economy. This study investigates the short- and long-run effects of economic openness and institutional environment on innovation by applying a dynamic panel regression model and two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) method to dynamic panel data of China's 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government (referred to as provinces hereafter) from 2008 to 2017. Results indicate that trade openness impedes innovation, whereas foreign direct investment (FDI) significantly promotes China's innovation particularly in the long-run. The continuous improvement of institutional environment promotes domestic innovation particularly in the long run. The integration of economic openness and institutional environment magnifies the effects of trade openness and FDI on innovation. The effects of economic openness and institutional environment on innovation differ by region with a descending pattern from China's Eastern to the Central andWestern regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the transition of China's economy toward high-quality development, it will be increasingly important to coordinate the relationship between local government competition, environmental regulation, and the transformation of the economic growth mode. To explore the impact of local government competition and environmental regulation on total factor productivity (TFP), in this study empirical analysis models were established using panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2001 to 2017. Local government competition was measured from the perspectives of foreign direct investment (FDI), fiscal expenditure, and tax. The results show that local government competition has a positive impact on the improvement in TFP. Taking environmental regulation into consideration, the impact of local government competition on TFP is weakened. Furthermore, under the current intensity of environmental regulation, local government fiscal expenditure competition and tax competition both lead to improvement in TFP, while FDI competition has the opposite effect. This paper explores the heterogeneity of the impact of local government competition and environmental regulation on TFP under different local government competition levels. Under the influence of environmental regulations, local government FDI competition has a negative impact on the improvement in TFP, particularly in "low" FDI competition areas. Local government fiscal expenditure competition has a positive impact on the improvement in TFP, particularly in "low" fiscal expenditure competition areas. The current level of local government tax competition has a negative impact on the improvement in TFP in "high" tax competition areas, whereas it has a positive impact on the improvement in TFP in "low" tax competition areas. [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]

In this paper, it was aimed to investigate the relation between economic growth, terrorism, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, environmental pollution, and energy consumption in China, India, Israel, and Turkey for a time span of 43 years from 1975 to 2017. Three different panel cointegration methods to determine the cointegration relation and two different causality methods to find the direction of causality were simultaneously used, since the presence of cointegration and direction of causality are fundamental to design economic policy and strategy. After similar results from panel cointegration tests were obtained, the causality tests were applied. Panel causality tests determined the evidence of uni-directional causality from terrorism, FDI, and energy usage to CO2 emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union (EU) enlargement of the mid-2000s is likely to have changed the motives for foreign direct investment (FDI) location between the existing Member States (the EU15) and the new entrants of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs), but it is poorly understood. This paper uses the framework of Dunning's eclectic paradigm and data for 35,105 foreign investments in Europe not only to examine if the motives differ between these, but also how they are affected by the enlargement. Three asset-exploiting motives of market, resource and efficiency seeking are explored using a conditional logit model for the location choice. This is separately for greenfield and brownfield FDI, involving new facilities or jobs, where the latter is efficiency seeking from an expansion or a co-location of functions. The paper finds greenfield FDI in the CEECs seeks an export platform for the EU market and a low-skilled workforce but a national market and higher skills in the EU15. Brownfield FDI differs from this for expansions only, for which the EU market is important, reflecting scale economies. Surprisingly, EU enlargement has a much stronger effect on the FDI location motives in the EU15 by increasing the importance of the European market, which is possibly because the CEEC liberalisation was ongoing throughout the accession process. The paper finds evidence that the differences in the motives between the CEECs and EU15 are narrowing over time, but they are pronounced, and it is argued that they will persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses two fundamental problems in the absorptive capacity (AC) literature: conceptual ambiguity on what AC is and a lack of synthesized empirical findings showing how AC matters for firm outcomes. We take a two-pronged approach to address these problems: (1) conceptual distillation of the literature to discern the core AC dimensions, outcomes, and contingent external knowledge conditions and (2) meta-analysis of the empirical literature to synthesize the findings. For conceptual distillation, we identify three dimensions of AC: absorptive effort (i.e., the knowledge-building investments made by a firm), absorptive knowledge base (i.e., the current knowledge stock of a firm), and absorptive process (i.e., a firm's internal procedures and practices related to knowledge diffusion). We develop these dimensions by explicating their theoretical roots, functions, mechanisms, and corresponding measures. Leveraging the conceptual distillation, we conduct meta-analyses of the empirical literature and synthesize key findings. We find that AC has a significant positive effect on firm outcomes and that the most commonly used dimension, absorptive effort, has the lowest mean effect size. We also find that knowledge acquisition and innovation generation fully mediate the effect of absorptive knowledge base but partially mediate the effects of absorptive effort and absorptive process on firm performance. Furthermore, AC's effects on firm outcomes vary across external knowledge contingencies. Overall, this paper provides a strong theoretical and empirical basis to advance a dimensional approach in AC research and thereby facilitates a more rigorous research necessary for cumulative knowledge development on this important topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the debate about foreign investment in Australian farmland. Employing a moral perspective, it is argued that the apparent tensions over foreign land investments in recent years can be interpreted as a renegotiation of the legitimate grounds upon which farmland investments should take place. The analysis shows that elements of worth are being applied to farmland that go beyond the ‘pure’ treatment of land according to market principles. Most notably, national references, together with concerns about control over strategic resources and the involvement of foreign sovereign entities, have gained prominence. Reacting to these concerns, the investment of domestic superannuation capital has emerged as a moral imperative to keep farmland in ‘national hands’. The paper thus stresses the need for a more nuanced differentiation between different kinds of ‘capital’ and particularly the way they are morally evaluated. The paper furthermore reveals that the linkages between capital and ‘nature’ are not forged in a random or arbitrary way. They are crucially shaped by the societal understanding of the legitimacy of certain kinds of capital and their associated motives and intentions as part of the broader understanding about the rules and principles that should govern economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forth a theory explaining domestic backlash against international investment law by connecting media coverage—specifically the bias in the news media's selection of international disputes—to public opinion formation towards international agreements. To test our theory, we examine both the content and effects of the media's reporting on international disputes, focusing on the increasingly controversial form known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). We find that newspaper outlets in both the United States and Canada have a bias in favor of covering disputes filed against their home country as opposed to those filed by home country firms. Using two national survey experiments fielded in the United States and Canada, we further find that the bias in news story selection has a strong negative effect on attitudes towards ISDS and related agreements, especially among highly nationalistic individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Venture capital plays a significant role in economic development through the emergence of new firms, technologies, industries and markets. This role, however, is associated with systemic uneven development regionally as both the supply of venture capital and the investment in new and growing ventures is highly concentrated regionally in the core economic regions of a country. Over the past decade, this intra-national regional concentration has been accompanied by an increasing internationalisation of the venture capital industry, as cross-border investment becomes more significant. In this paper, we explore the implications of this internationalisation for regional economic development in the UK. We conclude that the geography of venture capital in the UK has been shaped since the turn of the century by a significant increase in venture capital investments made by foreign funds, mainly in the form of co-investments with local funds. These foreign venture capital investments are primarily concentrated in London, Southeast England and East of England, which collectively attracted 82.5% of all foreign venture capital investments made to UK companies in 2017, strongly reinforcing the existing spatial concentration of venture capital investment. The paper concludes by questioning whether this increased dependency of these regions on foreign venture capital matters to regional development and draws out some of the implications for public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a framework (a) to examine whether or not the African business environment hinders or promotes the knowledge economy (KE), (b) to determine how the KE affects economic performance, and (c) how economic performance relates to the inequality-adjusted human socioeconomic development (IHDI) of 53 African countries during the 1996-2010 time period. We estimate the linkages with three related equations. The results support a strong correlation between the dynamics of starting and doing business and variations in KE. The results also show that there exists a weak link between KE and economic performance. Nonetheless, KE-influenced performance plays a more important role in socioeconomic development than some of the conventional control variables like foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign aid, and even private investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) has had a significant impact on rapid economic development and environmental pollution in China. Nonetheless, the underlying mechanism and empirical evidence of FDI impact on carbon emission efficiency have not been systematically explored. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of FDI on carbon emission efficiency via energy intensity, as well as the moderating role of the Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy (LCCP) in the process. We found that: (1) During the study sample period, the average carbon emission efficiency tends to rise, however, there remains a gap between the optimal carbon emission efficiency; (2) FDI is one of the key factors that inhibit the improvement of carbon emission efficiency, with a non-linear relationship between them; (3) FDI indirectly suppresses the improvement of carbon emission efficiency by promoting energy intensity. Nevertheless, the implementation of LCCP has a positive effect on carbon emission efficiency; (4) The implementation of LCCP has improved the negative impact of FDI on carbon emission efficiency, nonetheless, it cannot significantly influence the process that FDI affects carbon emission efficiency through energy intensity. Thus, we propose improvement measures from three aspects, i.e., increasing the introduction of foreign capital, adjusting the energy consumption structure, and expanding the scope of low-carbon cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's growing presence in Africa is not news: the expansion of bilateral trade and investment ties has garnered intense media and political focus over the past decade. However, less is known about the people accompanying these increasingly intensive flows of goods and capital. This paper focuses on Zambia, drawing on multiple primary datasets to shed light on both the scale and nature of Chinese migration to the continent. Two years of Department of Immigration employment-permit data serve as the basis for the first quantitative analysis of the "Chinese" in "Africa," illuminating the increasing diversity of this population flow. While the growing Chinese presence in Africa is often viewed as a coherent neocolonialist strategy planned and implemented by the Chinese state, this paper demonstrates that it is in fact typified by a multitude of both public and private actors with independent motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three years after not being in top 10 in Global Retail Development Index given by A. T. Kearney, India bounced back to 2nd Rank in 2016 Global Retail Development Index (GRDI). With a population of 1.31 billion, the total retail sale of $1.01trillion, and with CAGR (2013-2015) of 8.8%, India is always a retailer's paradise. But high customer inflation, currency fluctuations and ambiguity over foreign direct investment policies have hindered the growth of organized retailing in India since last few years. Government initiatives in improving the ease of doing business, and better clarity regarding foreign direct investment regulation has helped India to improve its ranking in the GRDI. This achievement is going to place India back on the radar of the international retailing companies for their investments in India. This paper attempts to discuss the opportunities to place the retail sector as one of the growth engines of the Indian economy for the coming decade. This paper is organized into three main sections. While the growth of organized retail in the country over last two and a half decades is discusses in the first part, the second part discusses the correlation between GRDI and foreign direct investment confidence index and its impact on overall GDP growth. Third part focuses on policies, institutions and regulations in retail sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims: on the one hand, to examine the existence of an FDI transmission channel through which migration indirectly affects inequality in South Asia; and on the other hand, to investigate the impact of FDI inflows on inequality by zooming in on the role of governance in determining the inequality effect of FDI in South Asian countries over the period 1996-2012 using static and dynamic panel data models. The main findings indicate that migration displays a significant positive impact on FDI inflows in six South Asian countries, and this is consistent with theory, that highlighted the intrinsic role played by migration in paving the way for unrestrained FDI flows from developed destination countries to South Asian countries of origin. On the other side, increased FDI inflows serve to further exacerbate inequalities in the region. The results also show that the increase in public expenditure on education has a prominent inequality-reducing effect. Likewise, governance displays a significant negative impact on inequality in South Asian countries. It is also revealed that the combined effect of FDI inflows and governance is effective in reducing inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of heterogeneous foreign investment on home market stock price informativeness. Evidence from China's nascent A-share market shows non-segmented foreign investment reduces firms' stock return synchronicity, while segmented foreign investment does not. Using the Shanghai (Shenzhen)–Hong Kong Stock Connect program as a natural experiment that exogenously increases non-segmented foreign ownership, we find that synchronicity drops significantly for program stocks relative to the control stocks. Our results are most consistent with an "informed trading" explanation, rather than a "learning" or "governance" explanation. These results have policy implications for stock market liberalization programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the effects of the European single market strategy by studying the effect of energy market integration (EMI) on foreign direct investment (FDI). Enforcing an EMI diminishes energy uncertainty and price volatility and signals stronger and credible institutions. FDI may, as a result, increase both within and outside the EMI area through two channels: first, via energy price converge and, second, via price dispersion reduction. We develop a formal model to explain how these mechanisms affect the capital invested abroad by heterogeneous firms. The Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL) integration of 2007 is used to quantify the effect of EMI on FDI empirically. Gravity estimates on a global dataset including bilateral FDI data show that the integration of Portugal and Spain's electricity market increased both the amount of FDI's participants and the number of foreign projects. In line with our theoretical expectations, our estimates show that the increase of FDI is mainly due to the reduction in price dispersion. However, the institutional credibility signal sent by MIBEL had a greater influence than expected by the actual price reduction. Furthermore, we also observe a positive increase in FDI from neighboring countries (in this instance, France), albeit lower in magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international investment regime has come under increasing scrutiny, with several developing countries withdrawing from bilateral investment treaties in recent years. A central worry raised by critics is that investment treaties undermine national self-determination. Proposed reforms to the regime have focused on rebalancing the distribution of power between states and investors to restore 'enlarged regulatory space' for the former. Contra this critique from national self-determination, in this paper I argue that infringements on national self- determination cannot alone explain why the investment regime is morally problematic. Instead, on this egalitarian view, the regime is objectionable because it empowers a class of agents, whose interests are reliably opposed to egalitarian economic policy, to constrain national self-determination. In effect, the investment regime undermines states' capacity to address inequality within and between states and is unjust for that reason. The moral and practical upshot is that reforms to the regime ought to empower disadvantaged groups to exert disproportionate leverage over the terms and practice of international investment, and to appeal to global institutions to do so. In other words, our moral assessment of a given global institution or practice should not depend on whether it constrains national self-determination, but on who it empowers to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the relationship between energy efficiency, CO2 emissions, foreign direct investment, exports, and real gross domestic product at both aggregate and disaggregate levels in Malaysia based on an autoregressive distributed lag approach. The annual data for the period of 1971–2013 are employed. The results indicate that energy efficiency Granger causes economic growth at the aggregate level, but not in each of the three main sectors (primary, secondary, and tertiary) of the economy. Another important finding of the study is that the export-led growth hypothesis is found to be valid in Malaysia at both the aggregate and disaggregate levels. The results of our study also confirm the fact that CO2 emissions do affect the overall economic performance and growth in all sectors, except for the primary sector. This finding implies that pollution from both secondary and tertiary sectors has led to economic growth in Malaysia. Moreover, it is also discovered that foreign direct investment does not have a significant impact on economic growth in Malaysia. The results of this study are essential for policymakers of Malaysia in designing appropriate policies in each sector that can lead to robust growth in the country. In addition to focusing on enhancing energy efficiency and promoting foreign direct investment, the policymakers should also start to look for alternative strategies to ensure long-term economic growth in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relevant relationship between transport infrastructure and foreign direct investment (FDI) in explaining economic growth from the road and air transport perspectives in Ethiopia over the period 1981 to 2017. To determine the economic effect of transport infrastructure, first, we assess the co-integration between transport infrastructure and economic growth using the autoregressive distributed lag bound test model. Once co-integration is established, the elasticity of economic growth is estimated using Ordinary Least Square estimation techniques. Second, we perform the hierarchical multiple regression to estimate the mediation impact of FDI in the association between transport infrastructure and economic growth. Initially, we have standardized all variables. Then, we estimate the mediating effect of FDI. To validate the consistency of our method, we check the robustness of our model. The obtained result shows that transport infrastructure has a significant long-term economic effect, and the short-run dynamics show the speed of adjustment is corrected by 81% each year toward the long-run path, and thereby transport infrastructure attracts FDI in Ethiopia. Moreover, FDI plays a significant mediating role, thereby increasing the economic growth performance of the country in Ethiopia. The study extends previous research and increases the validity of the findings by investigating the economic impact of transport infrastructure in the Ethiopian context. Moreover, this study is the first research study that explores the mediating role of FDI in the relationship between transport infrastructure and economic growth in Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with previous studies of the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and global value chains (GVCs), this work uses national panel data of 31 countries along the Belt and Road (B&R countries) from 2010 to 2017 to study the impact of Chinese outside foreign direct investment (OFDI) on the GVC positions of B&R countries and examines the threshold effects of infrastructure level and institutional quality on that impact. The results show that the improvement of B&R countries' GVC positions is related to Chinese OFDI, and Chinese OFDI has significantly positive dynamic effect on improving the GVC positions of B&R countries. Infrastructure level and institutional quality have double threshold effects upon the effect of Chinese OFDI on improving the GVC positions of B&R countries. When infrastructure level successively exceeds the two thresholds, the effect of Chinese OFDI on improving the GVC positions of B&R countries gradually increases, and when institutional quality successively exceeds the two thresholds, the effect of Chinese OFDI on improving the GVC positions of B&R countries gradually decreases. Our study proposes that under the Belt and Road Initiative, to improve the GVC positions of B&R countries, B&R countries should further strengthen their cooperation with China and continue to attract Chinese OFDI. Moreover, to better play the role of Chinese OFDI in enhancing the GVC positions of B&R countries, China should further strengthen the infrastructure connectivity construction with B&R countries and pay attention to the institutional quality of B&R countries when investing in them. [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]

In recent years, several countries have made sustained efforts to project their 'soft power' abroad. Public diplomacy has been an important tool for this purpose. Public diplomacy involves activities usually undertaken by a national government to inform and influence foreign public opinion and attitudes in order to advance its foreign policy goals. Such activities include 'nation-branding', diaspora outreach, digital engagement, international broadcasting, and international exchange programmes, all of which are designed to promote a positive image and reputation of the country to a global audience. This paper discusses the role of public diplomacy in the service of India's foreign policy goals during the twenty-first century. The practice of public diplomacy helps the country achieve two significant objectives. First, it helps allay any active or dormant fears within the international community about India as a rising power. Second, it helps India compete with other countries as it seeks to boost foreign tourist arrivals, attract foreign investment and secure new markets for its exports in an era of globalisation. This paper also briefly discusses some of the challenges associated with India's use of public diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian government needs to increase the access to electricity of a growing population and economy taking into account major environmental and health related challenges, rapidly changing technologies, social and cultural preferences and international commitments. Such an increased access calls for substantial investment, and hence India has been gradually liberalising the electricity sector since 1991. This paper addresses the question: What are the opportunities for accessing the foreign funding available to India and how can it use this funding to modernise its electricity sector in a sustainable manner? Based on a two year research programme, this paper examines the international institutional context and draws conclusions regarding the different mechanisms for India and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing India. It argues that since foreign funding is flowing into the country with enhanced liberalisation, the climate change mechanisms should be used to steer electricity generation in a sustainable direction, and aid funds should be used to focus on access for the rural poor to energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines how financial sector development affects the FDIeconomic growth nexus in Guyana. The novelty is that we examine the relationship in a poor, Small Island Developing State (SIDS) with an underdeveloped financial sector, and where the bulk of FDI flows to the extractive sector. Using annual data from 1981 to 2014, and, both a VECM and ARDL framework that distinguishes among long-run and short-run causal impacts, we provide new insights on why FDI may have a smaller impact on economic growth in SIDS or resource-rich countries. Specifically, we find that FDI dampens long-run growth in Guyana, which is consistent with the extractive literature, but through interaction with the financial sector, FDI has a positive offsetting effect at all levels of financial development in the period under study. While our findings have several nuanced policy implications on how to maximize the developmental potential of FDI in Guyana, they may be relevant to other SIDS or resource-rich countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does economic globalization affect regime support in non-democratic regimes? While we know a lot about how globalization affects politics in democracies, we know only little about its impact on political preferences in autocracies. I focus on FDI, which has increased considerably over the last decades and affects low- and high-skilled individuals differently. Material risks associated with FDI decrease regime support only among the poorly educated; economic gains from FDI bolster support for the incumbent regime for well-educated individuals. I present two analyses that corroborate these hypotheses. Study 1 uses Afrobarometer data and matches respondents with geo-located data on FDI. To mitigate selection problems, I only compare individuals that are exposed to FDI with individuals that are not yet exposed at the time the survey was administered. Study 2 utilizes cross-national survey data from 14 autocracies. My findings explain why some citizens favor the political status quo, even in autocracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a monetary perspective on capital flows and the Eurozone's north-south divide. It argues that finance-centric narratives in comparative political economy rightly emphasize financial instability in the periphery, but that the role of capital flows therein requires clarification. The article draws on post-Keynesian monetary theory, coherent accounting, and balance-of-payments data to make three points. First, the focus on the financial account as a driver of current accounts should be abandoned in favor of an analysis of gross capital flows. Gross flows need not stem from excess savings in core countries and can be independent from trade flows. Second, explanations of financial instability in the periphery should go beyond bank flows and consider speculative portfolio flows into bond markets and foreign direct investment into real estate. Third, rising spreads in the periphery during the Eurozone crisis and the outbreak of the pandemic were not triggered by balance-of-payments problems but by a reversal of speculative bond flows. Comparative political economy should thus dedicate more attention to institutions that render peripheral countries susceptible to speculative flows into asset markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the sources and processes of management learning in four large, former state enterprises in the Czech Republic. These enterprises have all been privatized, but have not enjoyed foreign direct investment, which is often cited as a major source of post-communist management development. The findings indicate that current managerial knowledge in the enterprises has originated from a variety of domestic and foreign sources, but that the flow of ideas has been affected by a number of important filters, arising from the complexity of the Czech context, and the motives of the enterprise managers. In particular, the paper documents the continuing role of managerial knowledge emanating from pre-1989 sources, a factor which may have crucial implications for the nature of the emerging institution of post-communist Czech management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing international division of labour presents opportunities for developing countries to attract foreign investments and generate employment in the offshore service sector. This paper focuses on developments in the Philippines, which has become a large exporter of business process outsourcing services over the past decade. The sector employs close to 800000 highly educated young workers, the majority of whom work night shifts in call centres. Where do offshore service firms invest in the Philippines, which spatial transformations occur as a result, and why? This paper maps the location of offshore service investments on a national and regional level and traces the genesis of service-based special economic zones (SEZs), which combine functions of service delivery for global markets with increasingly globalised consumption patterns. These service-based SEZs arise due to location choice factors of foreign investors in services offshoring, who require skilled labour and prefer modern and secure environments, modelled according to their home country. Changing government policies on spatial zoning facilitated the rise of these SEZs in central business districts in Metro Manila and existing powerful real estate developers not only enabled this development, but are also the primary local beneficiaries of this feature of contemporary globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the location consulting industry as a set of intermediaries that promote globalization when brokering between a demand for suitable sites for direct investment projects emanating from multinational enterprises and the supply of locations produced by host country governments. We outline three themes composing a research agenda: the nature of the knowledge mobilized by these intermediaries and its implications for the organization of the industry; the role of intermediaries as a neglected aspect of coupling within global production networks, and; the globally uneven contribution of intermediaries in different national political economies. We illustrate these themes empirically drawing on original interview research with location consultants and related companies based in Europe. In conclusion, we note how these intermediaries associated with ‘old’ economic geographical knowledge nevertheless continue to evolve practice in ways that shape the global distribution of investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries often offer substantial financial incentives (subsidies) for attracting foreign investments as new ventures, often with mixed results. Discussion to support foreign investment seldom includes improvement of the reporting and disclosure environment. When financial markets get integrated, but the accounting institutions and disclosure environment significantly differ, investment in a market with a relatively lax disclosure requirement may be construed by the investors as an attempt to avoid the due scrutiny of the asset's performance, leading to a lower valuation. If so, financial incentives would tend to offset such a disincentive in addition to providing other incentives. The results of this study show that an improvement in accuracy of the audit/disclosure regime reduces the demand for subsidy. Therefore, the countries may find it more economical to compete for foreign investments on the basis of a more detailed and rigorous audit/disclosure environment instead of only relying upon the levels of fiscal incentives. Uniform adoption of accounting standards, such as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), may help accomplish such an objective. Therefore, fiscal incentives, though important, should not be viewed in isolation. A more economical solution may include development of a strong financial disclosure and auditing environment besides offering of a fiscal subsidy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the initiation of the New Economic Policy in 1991, India's power policy illustrates the crystallization of a form of situated rationality that relies on capitalist competitiveness and foreign investment for growth and development. This paper, using critical discourse analysis, examines the resettlement of the Enron/Dabhol Power Project to highlight how this situated rationality represents power/knowledge that "legitimizes" prioritization of international capital, erosion of national sovereignty, and facilitates capitalist exploitation. [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]

In the context of emerging countries trying to attract foreign investors, building governance strategies and risk management of firms is an increasing concern. This study investigates the impact of financial flexibility strategies on the risk management effectiveness of firms and mechanism of these impacts by focusing on Vietnamese listed firms by applying the fixed effect and system GMM methods on a sample of 635 Vietnamese listed firms during the 2010 to 2021 period to derive empirical models under the high risk-high return approach. We also applied robustness tests to ensure that the results are reliable. We also investigate the level of risk management effectiveness among these firms during the 2010 to 2021 period. We found that financial flexibility strategies negatively impact risk management effectiveness of firms through reducing both firm risk and firm performance. Furthermore, we found that the degree of risk management effectiveness differs between low- and high-risk firms in Vietnam, with low-risk firms displaying more effective risk management compared to high-risk firms. Our research shows that financial flexibility strategies are not conducive to risk management effectiveness; however, firms can control the impact of flexibility strategies on risk management by controlling firm performance and risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most sub-Saharan African electricity generation is through renewable energy sources. However, the pace of renewable expansion is slow, mirrored by the region's low per capita electric power consumption and electricity access. The study examines the determinants of renewable electricity generation adoption in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries using content description and a panel ARDL analysis. Findings from this study show that hydroelectric power is the long-standing renewable electricity source in the region. The deployment of non-hydro renewable electricity sources is slow despite its vast potential. In most evaluated countries, renewable electricity targets are below actual realization. Also, policies are ineffective in driving renewable electricity adoption, as indicated by the negative relationship between renewable electricity generation and policy enactments in SSA. Foreign direct investment and financial development significantly negatively impact renewable electricity adoption, suggesting that both factors do not expand renewable electricity generation. Feasible strategies for increasing non-hydro renewable electricity use include activating renewable energy support mechanisms and their uptake. In addition, governments in SSA should strengthen their legal and institutional frameworks and encourage lessening bottlenecks and bureaucracies associated with renewable electricity investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade and capital flows are the key macroeconomic indicators of a country's balance of payment, and they impact the real economy. This study estimates the long-run association between exports, imports, foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth since India's economic reform in 1991 until 2019. Johansen multivariate cointegration method has been adopted to study this association and to develop long-run cointegration model. The augmented Dickey–Fuller test results show that variables are non-stationary at level and stationary at first difference. The cointegration model suggests a long-run relationship among GDP per person employed (GDPPE), exports, imports and FDI. The result shows that exports are the major determinant and positively influences the GDPPE whereas imports and FDI negatively influence GDPPE. The imports affect GDPPE more negatively than FDI. The vector error correction model finds long-run causality from GDPPE, exports and imports towards FDI and short-run causality from GDPPE towards FDI, imports towards FDI and GDPPE towards exports. The policy focus should be on export promotion and to closely watch the causal effect of labour productivity on FDI and exports, and imports on FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]