The present paper is concerned with the attractiveness of countries to direct foreign investments, that is, the host country characteristics that attract direct foreign investment (FDI). It focuses on two types of national characteristics— those that attract inflows of all foreign investment (intermediate products), including FDI, that is, mobility factors; and those that influence the modality...

Using the corresponding industry return in the foreign countries, I show that the foreign operations information of multinational firms is slowly incorporated into stock prices. A trading strategy based on this effect generates an abnormal return of approximately 0.8% per month, or 9.6% per year, controlling for risk-based factors. The return predictability is not driven by U.S. industry moment...

What motivates investors to hold American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) rather than the underlying stock of U.S. listed foreign firms? We analyze the investment allocation decision of actively-managed emerging market mutual fund managers. Although legal provisions are typically assumed to affect ADR and its underlying domestic shares equally, investors holding ADRs may have a higher level of legal...

The foreign exchange market is one of the biggest markets in the global financial capital market. With current trends toward financial capital globalization, it is becoming more important to understand the co-movement of foreign exchange. Investors always want to get all kinds of messages to make decisions about investing. Moreover, they always look forward to making a profit. This study invest...

This paper presents evidence on whether multinationals are flocking to developing country "pollution havens". We begin with data from four developing countries, examining the pattern of foreign investment in Mexico, Venezuela, Morocco and Cote d'Ivoire. We find almost no evidence that foreign investors are concentrated in "dirty" sectors. We then examine the behavior of multinationals located i...

We contribute to the literature on Foreign Direct Investment and labour markets by examining wage differentials between domestic and foreign firms, drawing on a large Portuguese matched employer-employee panel. Using OLS, the foreign-firm premium is large and significantly positive but falls substantially when firm and worker controls are added. Moreover, the premium also does not vary monotoni...

In this paper, we challenge the view that foreign investors lead firms to adopt a shortterm orientation and forgo long-term investment. Using a comprehensive sample of publicly listed firms in 30 countries over the 2001-2010 period, we find instead that greater foreign institutional ownership fosters long-term investment in tangible, intangible, and human capital. Foreign institutional presence...