Download or read book Are Foreign Investors Attracted to Weak Environmental Regulations written by Judith Myrle Dean and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Are Foreign Investors Attracted to Weak Environmental Regulations Evaluating the Evidence from China written by Judith M. Dean and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Foreign Firms Investment and Environmental Regulation in the People s Republic of China written by Phillip Stalley and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Pollution Havens and Foreign Direct Investment written by Beata K. Smarzynska Javorcik and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Greening China written by Ka Zeng and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2011-08-25 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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.

Download or read book Moving to Greener Pastures written by Gunnar S. Eskeland and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Is There a Pollution Haven Effect Evidence from a Natural Experiment in China written by Yi Lu and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book China s Growing Role in World Trade written by Robert C. Feenstra and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book New Voices in Investment written by Maria Laura Gómez Mera and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book State and Market in Contemporary China written by Scott Kennedy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book International Economic Integration and Domestic Performance written by Mary E Lovely and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-02-27 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Economic Integration and Domestic Performance brings together the essays of Mary E Lovely focused on the relationship between international economic integration and domestic performance. It is a collection of sole-authored and co-authored papers that have been published in various scholarly journals over the last two decades. The first section considers the welfare effects and optimal design of retail sales taxes when consumers can avoid taxation by crossing jurisdictional boundaries. The second section highlights the role of scale economies in the design of industrial policies and as a determinant of firm location. The third section explores the influence of environmental policy on foreign investor's location decisions and the role of trade and technology on country's environmental regulation. The final section considers the determinants of wage differences, the attraction of low wages for foreign investors, and misallocations of labor in an emerging economy — China. The collection, taken as a whole, highlights the power of international factor mobility to determine domestic tax burdens, to influence welfare implications of domestic policy alternatives, and to influence the location of productive factors and their rewards.

Download or read book Environmental Regulation written by John F. McEldowney and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring an original introduction by the editors, this important collection of essays explores the main issues surrounding the regulation of the environment. The expert contributors illustrate that regulating the environment in the UK is conceptually complex, involves a diverse range of institutions, techniques and methodologies and crosses geographical and national boundaries. In the USA it is more formalised, juridical, adversarial and formally dependent upon legal rules. The articles highlight the fact that despite differences in the UK and the USA's regulatory styles, environmental regulation today has much in common with both traditions.

Download or read book Doing Business 2020 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-21 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.

Download or read book Trends and Impacts of Foreign Investment in Developing Country Agriculture written by Pascal Liu and published by Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). This book was released on 2013 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Substantial increases in agricultural investments in developing countries are needed to combat poverty and realize food security and nutrition goals. There is evidence that agricultural investments can generate a wide range of developmental benefits, but these benefits cannot be expected to arise automatically and some forms of large-scale investment carry risks for host countries. Although there has been much debate about the potential benefits and risks of international investment, there is no systematic evidence on the actual impacts on the host country and their determinants. In order to acquire an in-depth understanding of potential benefits, constraints and costs of foreign investment in agriculture and of the business models that are more conducive to development, FAO has undertaken research in developing countries.This publication summarizes the results of this research, in particular through the presentation of the main findings of case studies in nine developing countries. It presents case studies on policies to attract foreign investment in agriculture and their impacts on national economic development in selected countries in Africa, Asian and Latin America.

Download or read book Investment Climate Reforms written by World Bank World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Private firms are at the forefront of the development process, providing more than 90 percent of jobs, supplying goods and services, and representing a significant source of tax revenues. Their ability to grow, create jobs, and reduce poverty depends critically on a well-functioning investment climate--defined as the policy, legal, and institutional arrangements underpinning the functioning of markets and the level of transaction costs and risks associated with starting, operating, and closing a business. The World Bank Group has provided extensive support to investment climate reforms. This evaluation by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assesses the relevance, effectiveness, and social value of World Bank Group support to investment climate reforms as it relates to concerns for inclusion and shared prosperity. IEG finds that the World Bank Group has supported a comprehensive menu of investment climate reforms and has improved investment climate in countries, as measured by number of laws enacted, streamlining of processes and time, or simple cost savings for private firms. However, the impact on investment, jobs, business formation, and growth is not straightforward. Regulatory reforms need to be designed and implemented with both economic and social costs and benefits in mind; IEG found that, in practice, World Bank Group support focuses predominantly on reducing costs to businesses. In supporting investment climate reforms, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation use two distinct but complementary business models. Despite the fact that investment climate is the most integrated business unit in the World Bank Group, coordination is mostly informal, relying mainly on personal contacts. IEG recommends that the World Bank Group expand its range of diagnostic tools and integrate them in the areas of the business environment not yet covered by existing tools; develop an approach to identify the social effects of regulatory reforms on all groups expected to be affected by them beyond the business community; and exploit synergies by ensuring that World Bank and IFC staff improve their understanding of each other's work and business models.

Download or read book Informal Regulation of Industrial Pollution in Developing Countries written by Sheoli Pargal and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1995 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book World Investment Report 2019 written by United Nations Publications and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-16 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report focuses on special economic zones (SEZs) which are widely used across most developing and many developed economies. It explores the place of SEZs in today's global investment landscape and provides guidance for policymakers on how to make SEZs work for sustainable development. It presents international investment trends and prospects at global, regional and national levels, as well as the evolution of international production and global value chains. It analyses the latest developments in new policy measures for investment promotion, facilitation and regulation around the world.