Three Essays on the Impact of Openness, FDI and Business Law on Economic Growth

Three Essays on the Impact of Openness, FDI and Business Law on Economic Growth
Author: Ha Yan Lee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

(Cont.) The endogenous nature of FDI and productivity growth presents an obstacle for estimating the impact of one on the other, and lead to biased results from the standard econometric models when use for establishing a causal relationship. However, the endogeneity problem can be overcome by the use of a valid instrument. This paper uses the Chinese government's FDI policy shift of the early 1990s as an instrument for the Chinese FDI in a 2SLS analysis. The results indicate that an increase in the level of FDI as a share of existing capital stock causes an increase in the growth rate of productivity, and that foreign capital is far more productive than domestic capital even after controlling for the province fixed-effects.

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.

Three Essays on the Relationship Between Policy Uncertainty and Foreign Direct Investment

Three Essays on the Relationship Between Policy Uncertainty and Foreign Direct Investment
Author: Chikezie Kenneth Okoli
Publisher:
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2021
Genre: International economic relations
ISBN:

Foreign direct investment (FDI) occurs when an entity in one country establishes a significant degree of ownership in an enterprise in another country. FDI is a critical component in ensuring the development of any economy. It often aids with the development of an industry or sector within an economy by bringing in capital, new technologies, manufacturing methodologies, and managing expertise to the receiving country. This dissertation examines the relationship between policy uncertainty and foreign direct investment (FDI) in developed economies. The first essay focuses on U.S. policy uncertainty and its effects on U.S. FDI inflows, while the second essay focuses on the cross-border effect of U.S. policy uncertainty on its neighbours FDI inflows. The third essay focuses on how policy uncertainty affects the investment entry mode choices of multinational enterprises. In the first essay, I add to the discussion surrounding Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and its relationship with policy uncertainty by employing novel measures of policy uncertainty in the United States. Drawing some conclusions from the Real Options investment theory, I examine the relationship between policy uncertainty and FDI inflows using different measures of policy uncertainty. Overall, I find that an increase in the Partisan Conflict (PC) index increases the flow of FDI into the United States. This finding appears at odds with what has previously been found in the literature regarding political uncertainty and FDI. Using other measures of policy uncertainty such as the Economic Policy Uncertainty index (EPU) and the categorical EPU (CPU) index the estimated results show policy uncertainty as measured by the EPU index, decreases FDI into manufacturing sectors and decreases FDI into non-manufacturing sectors. This effect varies depending on the sample period being examined. However, when policy uncertainty is measured by the CPU index, policy uncertainty has no impact on FDI inflows to the United States regardless of the type of industry or capital intensity. The second essay examines how U.S. policy uncertainty spillovers affect its neighbours within the context of FDI inflows. Adopting a common framework employed in the literature, I utilize a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model to examine the contemporaneous relationships between the endogenous and exogenous variables. The two spillover transmission methods examined in this paper are Direct Transmission and Indirect Transmission. The empirical analysis conducted showed that the significance of U.S. policy uncertainty spillovers varied by country and the method of transmission. Canadian FDI inflows from the United States and from the rest of the world were shown to be more susceptible to the negative effects of U.S. policy uncertainty spillovers via the direct channel. But the results remained mixed when considering the indirect channel. For Mexico, the results showed that only U.S. FDI inflows to Mexico were susceptible to the negative effects of U.S. policy uncertainty via the indirect channel. Furthermore, when policy uncertainty spillovers were defined between Partisan Conflict (PC) index and the Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index, the results showed that only EPU spillovers were significant in affecting FDI across Canada and Mexico. The third essay examines the mode of entry that Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) adopt in the presence of host market policy uncertainty. Employing a two-stage framework, I examine how Japanese MNEs establish foreign affiliates in 25 countries. In the first stage, the firms decide whether to adopt a direct or an indirect mode of entry in the presence of host market policy uncertainty. A direct entry mode is when the MNE has an ownership share in the affiliate that is greater than 10% while an indirect entry mode is when the MNE has no ownership shares in the affiliate but sets the operational and business goals of the affiliate. The results show that Japanese MNEs preferred an indirect mode of entry when faced with medium levels of policy uncertainty. In the second stage the estimated results show that relatively high levels of policy uncertainty caused Japanese MNEs to prefer minority Joint Ventures over establishing Wholly Owned Subsidiaries. Since 58% of observed investments occur in two countries (China, the United States) it is possible that the results of the analysis are being driven by the concentration of investments in both countries. Therefore, I re-examine the model to focus exclusively on investment activities in China and the United States. These results show that the previously described results were due to the investment activity in these two countries.