This paper deals with the investment effects of regional integration agreements and discusses how such arrangements may affect inward and outward foreign direct investment flows in the integrating region. After setting up a conceptual framework for the analysis, we provide three studies focusing on different kinds of regional integration: North-North integration (Canada joining CUSFTA), North-S...

Accurate policy evaluation is central to optimal policymaking, but difficult to achieve. Most often, analysts have to work with observational data and cannot directly observe the counterfactual of a policy to assess its effect accurately. In this paper, we craft a quasi-experimental design and apply two relatively new methods—the differencein-differences estimation and the synthetic controls me...

The Canadian economy has been a net recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI). The free-trade agreements (FTA and NAFTA) have had to attract more inward FDI. This study examines the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) between Canada and EU15, Brazil and Japan in the period 1995-2007. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of variables, such as, market size, labour cos...

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...

abstract the study examines the growth effects of foreign direct investment on environmental quality in nigeria between 1970 and 2013. variables like per capita income, environmental degradation, foreign direct investment, human capital, inflation, trade openness, interest rate, and the interaction term between foreign direct investment and carbon emission were employed in the study. a long run...

We examine the impact of capital account policies on FDI inflows. Using an annual panel dataset of 83 developing and developed countries for 1984-2000, we find that capital account openness is positively but only very moderately associated with the amount of FDI inflows after controlling for other macroeconomic and institutional measures. To a large extent, other country characteristics seem to...

Multinational firms circumvent capital controls by distorting their reported trade patterns, profitability, and dividend repatriations. The changed patterns of reported profits in response to capital controls are comparable to the effects of a 24% difference in corporate tax rates. The costliness of these acts of evasion combined with the significantly higher interest rates faced by multination...

This paper suggests that the use of investment incentives focusing exclusively on foreign firms, although motivated in some cases from a theoretical point of view, is generally not an efficient way to raise national welfare. The main reason is that the strongest theoretical motive for financial subsidies to inward FDI – spillovers of foreign technology and skills to local industry – is not an a...

This paper assesses the effect of openness on corruption, using foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows as a measure of openness, after trade intensity is accounted for. We use a broad cross section of countries over the period 1970 to 1994 and address the issue of causality with a new set of instrumental variables relying on geographical and cultural distance between the FDI exporting and reci...