Two Essays in International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

Two Essays in International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment
Author: Yi Sun
Publisher: Open Dissertation Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2017-01-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9781361385333

This dissertation, "Two Essays in International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment" by Yi, Sun, 孙熠, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: This dissertation consists of two studies. The first study is about the effect of institutions on the realization of foreign direct investment (FDI), and the second study examines the role of Hong Kong as the export intermediaries for China's export. In the first study, we empirically examine the determinants for the breach of ex ante contracted FDI using a unique firm-level data set of foreign invested enterprises in China. We find that both the institutional quality of China's various regions as well as that of FDI sourcing countries have significant impacts on the fulfillment rate of ex ante contracted FDI. In the second study, we use China's Custom data to analyze the factors affecting the share of China's indirect exports routing through Hong Kong, and explore the reasons that account for the declining role of Hong Kong in China's export. We find evidence that Hong Kong plays a greater role when regions are geographically closer to Hong Kong yet poorer in institutional quality, or when destination countries are further away and have more complicated importing documents. It has an advantage in helping China export differentiated products rather than homogenous goods, whereas has no advantage in helping export China's new products. We find that the reallocation of China's export across regions, products and firm types contributes to the decrease of Hong Kong's role as China's export intermediary. We also find that firms with higher productivity or higher increase in productivity would be more likely to export directly rather than export through Hong Kong. DOI: 10.5353/th_b5312318 Subjects: International trade - China Investments, Foreign - China

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.

North-South Globalization and Foreign Direct Investment

North-South Globalization and Foreign Direct Investment
Author: Jakob Schwab
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2018-06-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3658228113

Jakob Schwab analyzes central mechanisms in the systematic economic interaction between rich and poor countries. He focuses on the drivers and effects of investment in developing countries and shows that predictions of standard economic analysis may turn around when accounting for peculiarities of North-South globalization. The author shows how endowments with educational skill levels may lead to complementarity between trade and capital inflows, how inflows of direct investment capital may hinder income growth in poor countries, and how the distributional effects of the presence of multinational enterprises are perceived differently in countries of different development structures.

Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union

Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union
Author: David Turnock
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2017-11-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1351158104

With the achievement of further EU and NATO enlargement, a critical political and economic lens is now focused on East Central Europe and, to a lesser extent, the other former communist states. Economic growth in each transition state - and more broadly the region - pivots around the prospects for foreign direct investment (FDI), with decisions on where foreign investors will locate their projects now vitally important. This book - the first one devoted to a geographical survey concentrating specifically on FDI in the region - brings together a wide range of prominent authors from the US and Europe, including the late Frank Carter, to provide a timely and critical examination of the importance of foreign investment. It presents a detailed analysis of location patterns and their significance for regional development, with particular emphasis given to the important socioeconomic and political consequences of uneven distribution of FDI across the region and its constituent countries. Divided into two parts, the book first deals with general overarching themes and issues before applying these to more specific country case studies. The second part deals with regional studies, focusing broadly on the Western Balkans and Bulgaria, before looking at specific economic sectors in individual countries.

Essays on Foreign Direct Investment, Financial Development and Economic Institutions

Essays on Foreign Direct Investment, Financial Development and Economic Institutions
Author: Heather Mirsaidi Wickramarachi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN: 9781369173970

This dissertation seeks to highlight the relationship between foreign investment, financial development, and economic institutions in developing countries. The determinants and impact of foreign investment has been of particular scholarly interest over the past two decades, with only recent focus on developing countries. The first two chapters focus on the institutional determinants (domestic and international) of foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. The third chapter accesses the domestic distributional consequences of foreign investment in developing countries.The first chapter focuses on the domestic institutional determinants of foreign direct investment and financial deepening. Specifically, I create an institutional quality index that addresses investors desire to know more about the institutional environment within developing countries. Building upon and expanding previous theoretical frameworks for determinants of foreign and domestic capital flows, I utilize cross-sectional empirical analysis to assess the role that institutions play in promoting financial development and foreign direct investment. I find that institutional quality has a positive and significant on both foreign direct investment and financial deepening.This second chapter examines the significance of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in promoting FDI between developing (South-South) countries. Drawing on intra-regional investment data from MENA countries, this paper initiates the examination of South-South BITs, their impact on FDI, and the theoretical channels through which changes in FDI occur. The results of my time-series cross-sectional analysis suggest that the signing of South-South BITs have a positive impact on FDI flows, but under different circumstances than North-South agreements.The final chapter considers the distributional consequences of foreign direct investment in developing countries. Specifically, I access the impact of foreign investment on the level of democracy and the level of income inequality. Additionally, I estimate the intervening impact of domestic financial development and how this interacts with FDI and the dependent variables. I find that in a sample of developing countries, FDI increases levels of democracy, as well income inequality, and that domestic financial development has an interactive effect.

Essays on International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

Essays on International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment
Author: Han Ping Davin Chor
Publisher:
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2007
Genre:
ISBN: 9780549023234

Chapter 3 explores the effects of financial development in the FDI host country on multinational sales activity. Using data on US multinational activity abroad, we find that stronger host country financial development tends to lower the share of affiliate sales that remain in the local market, while increasing the share of sales to third-country destinations. We provide a three-country model with heterogeneous firms to rationalize these observations: Host countries with better financial development foster entry by domestic firms, resulting in a more competitive local market. This leads multinationals to orient their operations away from horizontal sales to the local market, towards export-platform sales to third-country markets instead.