Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are the primary legal mechanism protecting foreign direct investment (FDI) around the world. BITs are thought to encourage FDI by establishing a broad set of investor’s rights and by allowing investors to sue a host state in an international tribunal if these rights are violated. Perhaps surprisingly, the empirical literature connecting BITs to FDI flows has...

We examine the causal effects of alternative foreign technology transfer channels on the productivity of Turkish manufacturing plants, using propensity score matching techniques that limit implicit assumptions about plant homogeneity and self selection imbedded in standard estimates of such effects. We find positive impacts of technology transfer through foreign direct investment (FDI), exporti...

Antidumping (AD) petitions are often withdrawn in favor of VERs and price undertakings. We compare foreign firms’ incentive to engage in foreign direct investment (FDI) under a VER and a price undertaking, with special emphasis on foreign rivalry. We show that a VER is less likely to induce FDI than a price undertaking or AD. Thus, the importing country can increase the level of protection by r...

In this paper, I focus on a phenomenon that has not received much attention in the literature, namely that the mere expectation of foreign direct investment (FDI) incentivizes long-maturity investment projects by domestic residents, and a Sudden Stop when expectations are frustrated. Long-maturity investment projects enhance productivity but increase the economy’s vulnerability to Sudden Stop. ...

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has great impact on the development of a developing country like Bangladesh. The foreign investor seeks for new sources of investment where the developing country seeks for new sources of fund to develop the country. The FDI does not only bring sources of fund in a developing country but also new technology in a developing country. The FDI has the important role ...

With few exceptions, the empirical literature on foreign direct investment (FDI) continues to be gender-blind. This paper contributes to filling this gap by assessing the importance of gender inequality in education as a determinant of FDI. We estimate a standard gravity model on bilateral FDI flows which is augmented by educational variables, including different measures of gender inequality i...

Previous studies have found that importing goods from R&D-intensive countries raises a country’s productivity. In this paper we investigate econometrically whether foreign direct investment (FDI) also transfers technology across borders. The data indicates that FDI transfers technology, but only in one direction: a country’s productivity is increased if it invests in R&D-intensive foreign count...

We develop a standard model to show how transaction costs in international investment affect conventional tests of consumption risk sharing, both in a multilateral and a bilateral setting. We implement the tests in a novel international dataset on bilateral holdings of equity, bonds, foreign direct investment and bank loans. International consumption risk sharing increases with foreign capital ...

The role of foreign direct investment (FDI) continues to be debated and tested in the literature on international economics and development economics. This paper extends the previous empirical studies on the issue by developing a new framework and providing some evidence from panel data of China. We first identify possible channels through which FDI may affect (positively or negatively) the Chi...

Foreign direct investment has been of great importance in economic growth and global economic integration over the last decades. South East Asia has been part of this development with rapidly increasing inflows of FDI. However, there are large variations over time and between countries in the region as regard to the policies towards FDI, and in actual inflows of FDI. This chapter aims at examin...