Are Foreign Investors Attracted to Weak Environmental Regulations?

Are Foreign Investors Attracted to Weak Environmental Regulations?
Author: Judith Myrle Dean
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2005
Genre: Investments, Foreign
ISBN:

Results from 2,886 manufacturing joint venture projects from 1993--96 show that EJVs from all source countries go into provinces with high concentrations of foreign investment, relatively abundant stocks of skilled workers, concentrations of potential local suppliers, special incentives, and less state ownership. Environmental stringency does affect location choice, but not as expected. Low environmental levies are a significant attraction only for joint ventures in highly-polluting industries with partners from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (China). In contrast, joint ventures with partners from OECD sources are not attracted by low environmental levies, regardless of the pollution intensity of the industry. The authors discuss the likely role of technological differences in explaining these results"--Abstract.

Are Foreign Investors Attracted to Weak Environmental Regulations? Evaluating the Evidence from China

Are Foreign Investors Attracted to Weak Environmental Regulations? Evaluating the Evidence from China
Author: Judith M. Dean
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2009
Genre:
ISBN:

At the center of the pollution haven debate is the claim that foreign investors from industrial countries are attracted to weak environment regulations in developing countries. Some recent location choice studies have found evidence of this attraction, but only for inward FDI in industrial countries. The few studies of inward FDI in developing countries have been hampered by weak measures of environmental stringency and by insufficient data to estimate variation in firm response by pollution intensity. This paper tests for pollution haven behavior by estimating the determinants of location choice for equity joint ventures (EJVs) in China. Beginning with a theoretical framework of firm production and abatement decisions, we derive and estimate a location choice model using data on a sample of EJV projects, Chinese effective levies on water pollution, and Chinese industrial pollution intensity. Results show EJVs in highly-polluting industries funded through Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan are attracted by weak environmental standards. In contrast, EJVs funded from non-ethnically Chinese sources are not significantly attracted by weak standards, regardless of the pollution intensity of the industry. These findings are consistent with pollution haven behavior, but not by investors from high income countries and only in industries that are highly polluting. Further investigation into differences in technology between industrial and developing country investors might shed new light on this debate.

Foreign Firms, Investment, and Environmental Regulation in the People's Republic of China

Foreign Firms, Investment, and Environmental Regulation in the People's Republic of China
Author: Phillip Stalley
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804775141

This new book takes as its focus a simple yet critical question: Does foreign direct investment lead to weakened environmental regulation, thereby turning developing countries into "pollution havens"? The debate over this question has never before been the focus of a book about China. Phillip Stalley examines the development of Chinese law governing the environmental impact of foreign investors, describes how regional competition for investment has influenced environmental regulation, and analyzes the environmental practices of foreign and Chinese companies. He finds only modest evidence that integration with the global economy has transformed China into a pollution haven. Indeed, after China opened its domestic market, the entry of foreign films largely strengthened the environmental protection regime, including the oversight of foreign firms' environmental practices. Nevertheless, foreign firms (and the competition to lure them) have posed new challenges to controlling industrial pollution. Stalley identifies the conditions under which foreign investment contributes to and undermines environmental protection, offering readers a solid understanding of China's environmental challenges. He also builds on existing theory and provides hypotheses that can be tested with other developing nations.

Greening China

Greening China
Author: Ka Zeng
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2019-02-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0472901192

“The authors make some very critical interventions in this debate and scholars engaged in the environmental ‘pollution haven’ and ‘race to the bottom’ debates will need to take the arguments made here seriously, re-evaluating their own preferred theories to respond to the insightful theorizing and empirically rigorous testing that Zeng and Eastin present in the book.” —Ronald Mitchell, University of Oregon China has earned a reputation for lax environmental standards that allegedly attract corporations more interested in profit than in moral responsibility and, consequently, further negate incentives to raise environmental standards. Surprisingly, Ka Zeng and Joshua Eastin find that international economic integration with nation-states that have stringent environmental regulations facilitates the diffusion of corporate environmental norms and standards to Chinese provinces. At the same time, concerns about “green” tariffs imposed by importing countries encourage Chinese export-oriented firms to ratchet up their own environmental standards. The authors present systematic quantitative and qualitative analyses and data that not only demonstrate the ways in which external market pressure influences domestic environmental policy but also lend credence to arguments for the ameliorative effect of trade and foreign direct investment on the global environment.

Pollution Havens and Foreign Direct Investment

Pollution Havens and Foreign Direct Investment
Author: Beata K. Smarzynska Javorcik
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2001
Genre: Air quality management
ISBN:

The "pollution haven" hypothesis states that multinational firms, particularly those in highly polluting industries, relocate to countries with weak environmental standards. Despite the plausibility and popularity of this hypothesis, Smarzynska and Wei find only weak evidence in its favor.

Is There a Pollution Haven Effect? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in China

Is There a Pollution Haven Effect? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in China
Author: Yi Lu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

In this paper, we investigate whether there is a pollution haven effect, specifically, the effect of environmental regulations on firm location. Our identification uses the Two Control Zones (TCZ) policy implemented by the Chinese government in 1998. The difference-in-differences (DID) estimation shows that cities with tougher environmental regulations attract less foreign direct investment (FDI). Specifically, being listed as a TCZ city causes the amount of FDI to drop by 41%. Our results are robust to various robustness checks on the validity of the DID estimation and other estimation concerns.

Moving to Greener Pastures?

Moving to Greener Pastures?
Author: Gunnar S. Eskeland
Publisher:
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2002
Genre: Air
ISBN:

This paper presents evidence on whether multinationals are flocking to developing country 'pollution havens'. Although we find some evidence that foreign investors locate in sectors with high levels of air pollution, the evidence is weak at best. We then examine whether foreign firms pollute less than their peers. We find that foreign plants are significantly more energy efficient and use cleaner types of energy. We conclude with an analysis of US outbound investment. Although the pattern of US foreign investment is skewed towards industries with high costs of pollution abatement, the results are not robust across specifications.

China's Growing Role in World Trade

China's Growing Role in World Trade
Author: Robert C. Feenstra
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 603
Release: 2010-03-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226239721

In less than three decades, China has grown from playing a negligible role in international trade to being one of the world's largest exporters, a substantial importer of raw materials, intermediate outputs, and other goods, and both a recipient and source of foreign investment. Not surprisingly, China's economic dynamism has generated considerable attention and concern in the United States and beyond. While some analysts have warned of the potential pitfalls of China's rise—the loss of jobs, for example—others have highlighted the benefits of new market and investment opportunities for US firms. Bringing together an expert group of contributors, China's Growing Role in World Trade undertakes an empirical investigation of the effects of China's new status. The essays collected here provide detailed analyses of the microstructure of trade, the macroeconomic implications, sector-level issues, and foreign direct investment. This volume's careful examination of micro data in light of established economic theories clarifies a number of misconceptions, disproves some conventional wisdom, and documents data patterns that enhance our understanding of China's trade and what it may mean to the rest of the world.

New Voices in Investment

New Voices in Investment
Author: Maria Laura Gómez Mera
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-12-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781464803710

This study analyzes the characteristics, motivations, strategies, and needs of FDI from emerging markets. It draws from a survey of investors and potential investors in Brazil, India, South Korea, and South Africa.

State and Market in Contemporary China

State and Market in Contemporary China
Author: Scott Kennedy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 69
Release: 2016-03-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442259442

The short essays in this volume, contributed by leading experts on Chinese economic policy, provide crisp and insightful analyses of the Chinese state's approach toward markets, the role of key actors and institutions, the evolving nature of industrial policy and the effectiveness of China’s international commitments to constrain such practices, and a preview of the likely contents and significance of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.