This paper analyzes the cross-country distribution and volume of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), its barriers, and its impact on welfare. From the observed patterns of FDI, three facts stand out: a very small fraction of countries engages in FDI; geography remains a significant impediment to FDI; countries’ size is important in determining the existence and volume of bilateral FDI. I present a...

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...

Adelaide to strengthen teaching and research in the field of international economics and closely related disciplines. Its specific objectives are: • to promote individual and group research by scholars within and outside the University of Adelaide • to strengthen undergraduate and postgraduate education in this field • to provide shorter training programs in Australia and elsewhere • to conduct...

This paper discusses the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on market entry and welfare. It assumes that firms may enter markets in the first period as national firms only. In the second period, however, FDI is possible. The paper demonstrates that FDI reduces market entry because equilibrium profits in the second period decline with a decrease in the fixed cost of FDI. Therefore, compar...

Empirical evidence confirms that trade exposure can shift resources towards the most efficient firms in an industry and induce substantial increases in aggregate productivity. Although recent studies document that much of world trade is controlled by multinational firms, few examine the effect of foreign direct investment decisions on resource allocation and aggregate productivity. This paper p...

FDI flows grew exponentially during the 1990s, experienced a sharp decline over the period 20012004, and have recently started to recover. The decline was mostly due to a fall in FDI flows within the OECD, particularly of FDI flows to continental Europe. In recent years, FDI flows to developing countries have also increased substantially. This trend has been encouraged by governments who view i...