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The global rise of China in the last three decades has reshuffled power dynamics in the global economy, including the global balance of power in employment relations. Since 2000, global FDI inflows into China have more than quadrupled, but also, something less noticed by research, China's FDI outflows have increased more than hundredfold, and by 2015 had overtaken the inward flows (UNCTAD data). [Extracted from the article]

The paper analyses the links between illicit financial flows, money laundering and dependent financialization using the Baltic states as exploratory case studies. Since the restoration of their independence, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been involved in several massive money laundering scandals, with illicit funds flowing mainly from Russia, as well as other former Soviet Republics. Currently, these episodes have taken on a new dimension in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Until recently, the prevailing narrative was that illicit financial flows and money laundering in the Baltic states resulted from a failure in the financial system's ability to monitor and detect these operations. However, this paper argues that far from being a simple shortcoming, money laundering and illicit financial flows in the Baltic states are products of dependent financialization in two main ways: first, in the decade leading up to the global financial crisis, the overall economic performance and the returns of financial actors in these countries became dependent on foreign capital inflows. This dependency was key to enabling the arrival of illicit financial flows and money laundering from the post-Soviet space, especially after the crisis. Second, due to its comparative advantages and its subordinate position in the international financial system, the banking sector of the Baltic states was used as an intermediary in global financial networks of money laundering for funds from the former USSR, where it assumed most of the financial, legal and reputational risks. Finally, the research also points to the emergence of new risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The intensification of ecological issues provokes to search for the appropriate mechanism and resources to solve them without declining the economic growth. This requires moving from resources oriented to green economic development. It could be realised through two goals: achieving macroeconomic stability – core driver of economic growth; declining environmental degradation and increasing efficiency of resources using – core requirements for green development. The paper aims to check the hypothesis on macroeconomic stability's impact on the green development of the countries. The object of investigation is European Union countries from 2000 to 2020. The study applied the following methods: the Global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index – to estimate the green development of the countries; Macroeconomic Stabilisation Pentagon model – to estimate macroeconomic stability; Kernel density estimation and Tobit model – to check the macroeconomic stability impact on the green development of the countries. The empirical findings show that Malta from the 'Green Group' and Estonia from the 'Yellow group' have the highest value of green development, and Sweden and Greece have the highest value of macroeconomic stability. Besides, the findings allow confirming the research hypothesis. Thus, the growth of external dimensions of macroeconomic stability by 1 point led to the growth of green economic development by 0.085 (among 'Green group') and 0.195 (among 'Yellow group'). It confirms that harmonising macroeconomic stability among all EU members allows for achieving the synergy effect. [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]

Studies on the drivers of public sector wage setting (PSWS) within the broader political and economic conditions in Central and Eastern Europe are scarce. To fill this gap, the paper questions to what extent the export-led growth model, based on foreign direct investment as driver of economic growth, influenced PSWS in Czechia and Slovakia after the 2008–2009 crisis. The paper provides new evidence of the appropriateness of the growth model literature, integrated by consideration of global production chains integration, for understanding PSWS in CEE conditions. The analysis shows that PSWS followed institutional traditions and established practices that only indirectly related to the countries' export orientation and integration into global production chains. The indirect growth model impact on PSWS in CEE conditions is channeled through a strong role of the statutory minimum wage, which serves as a wage benchmark both for the export sector and PSWS. [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 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]

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]

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]

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]

This paper presents a political ecological analysis of the drivers and impacts of Green Revolution technologies – including improved seeds, chemical fertiliser and other agrochemicals – in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. We identify national government, foreign investment and philanthro-capital as key drivers in shaping both narratives and uptake of Green Revolution technologies at the local level. Drawing from interviews and focus groups, our findings demonstrate that Green Revolution technologies deliver a range of negative local-level socio-ecological impacts, including increasing the overall costs of production, as well as exacerbating poverty and inequality amongst farmers. Our findings demonstrate the disconnection between claims that Green Revolution technologies increase food security and income, and lived experiences of farmers. [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]

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]

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 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]

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]

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]

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]

From the practice of developed countries, countries with higher patent applications and PCT patent applications (such as the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, etc.) have relatively higher outward foreign direct investment, and the actual data of provinces in China also show that with the improvement of the patent level in various provinces and cities, the intensity of outward foreign direct investment in each province and city has also increased. At present, there are relatively few research data and the research method is relatively single. Therefore, collecting panel data on China's 31 provinces from 2003 to 2016, this paper conducts an empirical analysis on the influence of patent level on outward foreign direct investment via analytical method of equal part linear regression and Grey Computing. By comparing analysis results with the model and the results with conventional linear regression model, the difference of different regression models is observed. Furthermore, the impact of China's patent level on China's inter-provincial outward foreign direct investment is further analyzed. [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]

The paper reports on a study of the comparative stability of foreign owned manufacturing firms in Wales, using as a framework the Welsh Register of Manufacturing Employment which records details of regional manufacturing entry and exits since 1966. The paper is set in the context of competing claims on the more transformative effects of inward investment with some stressing that notions of a ‘new regionalism’ in Wales have been unjustly founded on assumptions about the transforming effects of foreign investment. There is also a problem of a paucity of research showing how foreign investment had been involved in evolutionary processes of regional economic change. The paper shows that a more complete appreciation of the role of inward investment needs to consider not only its role in job creation but also the relative stability of the investment and jobs attracted. The paper reveals how analysis of plant birth and deaths also links through to perspectives offered by evolutionary economic geography, and how patterns of entry and exit might work to influence the economic trajectories of a disadvantaged region such as Wales. [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]

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]

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]

A consensus is emerging that in order to understand the global financial landscape one needs to pay attention to the key institutions that are said to dominate it, namely large banking entities. This paper challenges that consensus as applied to eurozone-centred debt flows. Though bank-centred approaches are well equipped to explain a significant portion of cross-border debt dynamics through carry trades, there is little evidence this constituted the central mechanism for channelling flows. The expansion of debt flows is instead explained by depressed returns on fixed income instruments and the ensuing asset-liability mismatches which led investors to move into financial sector debt and yieldproducing securitized assets. An investor-centred as opposed to a bank-centred understanding of debt flows has important financial stability and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the Brexit announcement affects Japanese direct investment into Europe at the regional NUTS-2 level. Political and economic uncertainty is an important factor affecting the economic performance of a country and its regions. In this study, Japanese annual firm-level data between the years 2000 and 2018 for 31 European countries is used. Negative binomial estimations indicate a significant negative relationship between uncertainty associated with the Brexit announcement and Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK regions. Strong FDI path dependence currently acts to dampen this effect. However, depending upon future European Union Single Market access rules, such path dependence could act to magnify Brexit's effect on inward-UK FDI. JEL Classification Codes: F23, R12. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discipline of comparative political economy (CPE) relies heavily on aggregate, country-level economic indicators. However, the practices of multinational corporations have increasingly undermined this approach to measurement. The problem of indicator drift is well documented by a growing critical literature and calls for systematic methodological attention in CPE. We present the case for a rocky but ultimately rewarding middle road between indicator fatalism and indicator faith. We illustrate our argument by examining two important cases—Sweden's recent export success and the financialization of non-financial corporations in France. A careful parsing of the data suggests corrections to common characterizations of the two cases. Swedish exports have been reshaped by intragroup trade among foreign subsidiaries of domestic corporations. The growth of financial assets held by French firms is attributable to the growth of foreign direct investment and to cumulative revaluation effects, while what remains of financialization is concentrated among the very largest firms. Based on these findings, we propose a methodological routine that parses data by zooming in on the qualitative specifics of countries, sectors, and firms, while using all available options for disaggregation. [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]

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]

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]

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]

South Korea is considered one of the leading countries in innovation and research and development (R&D), in particular in renewable energy R&D efforts, but it is also one of the more polluting countries. So, understanding the interplay between these variables is of great interest. The main objective of this article is to examine the relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, economic growth (GDP), renewable energy consumption (RE), foreign direct investment (FDI), home patents (HP), and foreign patents (FP) in South Korea using data ranging from 1980 to 2018. For this purpose, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and Granger causality tests were employed. Estimates of long-run elasticity point to a positive relationship between GDP and CO2 emissions. FP and RE have a negative influence on CO2 emissions but they have a favorable effect on GDP. FDI and HP have positive impacts on CO2 emissions. Granger causality outcomes demonstrate that CO2 emissions, GDP, RE, and FP have long-term bidirectional causal relationships. In the short-run, there are unidirectional causalities running from FP and FDI to RE and from FDI and HP to GDP. Besides, there is a bidirectional causality between GDP and RE. South Korea should continue to promote renewable energies and facilitate the use of foreign patents, particularly those relating to renewable energies. This will lead to a reduction in its carbon emissions while benefiting its economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important and frequently raised issue about foreign direct investment (FDI) is its potentially environmental consequences. In recent years, as severe haze pollution has broken out worldwide, whether FDI inflows increase PM2.5 spillages in a country has sparked a new round of heated discussion. This study attempts to empirically investigate how FDI affects haze pollution in various countries, by employing a cross-country panel dataset during the period 2010–2017, and further to examine the interactive effect of environmental regulation and FDI in the FDI–pollution nexus. Based on a two-way fixed-effects model with robust standard errors, the estimation results show that FDI inflows significantly lead to an increase in PM2.5 exposure, therefore, confirming the validity of the Pollution Haven Hypothesis. Moreover, environmental regulation generally appears to be ineffective in directly reducing haze pollution but acts as an essential underlying mechanism in the relationship between FDI and haze pollution. Under the moderation of environmental regulation, the positive marginal effect of FDI on PM2.5 continues to decrease until it becomes negative. The findings suggest that countries, especially developing countries and emerging economies should consider a mix of policies to manage its inward FDI to achieve sustainable development in the post-financial crisis era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]