Download or read book Does a Country Need a Promotion Agency to Attract Foreign Direct Investment written by Jacques Morisset and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Establishing an investment promotion agency has become a central part of most countries' development strategies. Today there are more than 150 investment promotion agencies worldwide. Yet very little is known about what these agencies have been really doing, notably in emerging countries, and whether they have been effective in influencing investors' decisions. Using data from a new survey on 58 countries, Morisset shows that greater investment promotion is associated with higher cross-country foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, on top of the influence of the country's investment climate and market size. But this result has to be qualified on several counts. First, the effectiveness of the agency depends on the country's environment in which it operates. An agency in a poor investment climate is less effective at attracting investment. Second, the scope of activities that an agency undertakes influences its performance. Morisset's empirical analysis indicates that agencies devoting more resources on policy advocacy are more effective because such activity is not only beneficial to foreign investors but also to domestic investors. In contrast, investment generation or targeting strategies appear expensive and risky, especially in countries with poor investment climates. Finally, certain internal characteristics of the agencies are associated with greater effectiveness. The agencies that have established reporting mechanisms to the country's highest policymakers (the president or prime minister) or to the private sector have been systematically more efficient at attracting foreign direct investment. Such institutional links are crucial because they contribute to strengthen the government's commitment as well as reinforce the agency's credibility and visibility in the business community.

Download or read book Does a Country Need a Promotion Agency to Attract Foreign Direct Investment A Small Analytical Model Applied to 58 Countries written by Jacques P. Morisset and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Establishing an investment promotion agency has become a central part of most countries' development strategies. Today there are more than 150 investment promotion agencies worldwide. Yet very little is known about what these agencies have been really doing, notably in emerging countries, and whether they have been effective in influencing investors' decisions.Using data from a new survey on 58 countries, Morisset shows that greater investment promotion is associated with higher cross-country foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, on top of the influence of the country's investment climate and market size.But this result has to be qualified on several counts. First, the effectiveness of the agency depends on the country's environment in which it operates. An agency in a poor investment climate is less effective at attracting investment. Second, the scope of activities that an agency undertakes influences its performance. Morisset's empirical analysis indicates that agencies devoting more resources on policy advocacy are more effective because such activity is not only beneficial to foreign investors but also to domestic investors. In contrast, investment generation or targeting strategies appear expensive and risky, especially in countries with poor investment climates.Finally, certain internal characteristics of the agencies are associated with greater effectiveness. The agencies that have established reporting mechanisms to the country's highest policymakers (the president or prime minister) or to the private sector have been systematically more efficient at attracting foreign direct investment. Such institutional links are crucial because they contribute to strengthen the government's commitment as well as reinforce the agency's credibility and visibility in the business community.This paper - a product of the Foreign Investment Advisory Service - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to understand foreign direct investment flows.

Download or read book Information Diffusion in International Markets written by Jacques Morisset and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalization has been a persistent phenomenon of the post-war period. The gross volume of cross-border capital flows has grown at an average of 25 percent a year, and trade in goods and services has also increased, albeit not as dramatically, but at least twice as fast as world GDP over the past 20 years. Yet, consumers and investors continue to spend and hold a disproportionate share of their assets in local markets--the so-called home-bias has been emphasized by many recent empirical studies. For many researchers, this home bias reflects information asymmetries and the fact that acquiring information across international borders is relatively costly. The main objective of the authors is to identify channels through which information gets disseminated across international markets. They consider three potential channels through which information can affect import and foreign equity purchase decisions in 14 OECD countries. The first channel consists of information spillovers from the commercial to the financial markets and vice-versa. Financial investors and importers share common information, which is also frequently conveyed to them by the same source--banks or financial intermediaries. The second and third channels emphasize seller and buyer reputations in international markets. The seller reputation channel stresses the importance given by, for example, importers in the United States who are considering buying products from Italy to the experience that Canadian and Japanese importers may have accumulated on Italian exporters. The buyer reputation channel examines to what extent a foreign investor or trader seeks information on the reliability of the foreign buyer by assessing his reputation in other countries. While the last two channels are equally important in explaining bilateral import flows, buyer reputation appears to be of greater importance for equity flows in the sample. The authors argue that these three channels may help provide some insights about the recent episodes of contagion across markets and countries that occurred over the past decade. These information channels can create virtuous or vicious circles that may, in turn, lead to unexpected changes in investors' and traders' behaviors across markets. This paper--a product of Trade, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand international capital and trade flows.

Download or read book The Impact of Bank Regulations Concentration and Institutions on Bank Margins written by Asl? Demirgüç-Kunt and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the impact of bank regulations, concentration, inflation, and national institutions on bank net interest margins using data from over 1,400 banks across 72 countries while controlling for bank-specific characteristics. The data indicate that tighter regulations on bank entry and bank activities boost net interest margins. Inflation also exerts a robust, positive impact on bank margins. While concentration is positively associated with net interest margins, this relationship breaks down when controlling for regulatory impediments to competition and inflation. Furthermore, bank regulations become insignificant when controlling for national indicators of economic freedom or property rights protection, while these institutional indicators robustly explain cross-bank net interest margins. So, bank regulations cannot be viewed in isolation. They reflect broad, national approaches to private property and competition.

Download or read book Economic Impacts of China s Accession to the World Trade Organization written by Elena Ianchovichina and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: 1 billion) and trade reforms after accession will lead to additional gains of around : Ianchovichina and Martin present estimates of the impact of accession by China and Chinese Taipei to the World Trade Organization. China is estimated to be the biggest beneficiary, followed by Chinese Taipei and their major trading partners. Accession will boost the labor-intensive manufacturing sectors in China, especially the textiles and apparel sector that will benefit directly from the removal of quotas on textiles and apparel exports to North America and Western Europe. Consequently, developing economies competing with China in third markets may suffer relatively small losses. China has already benefited from the reforms undertaken between 1995 and 2001 (US.

Download or read book The changing financial landscape written by Wafik Grais and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2002 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economists have come to acknowledge that finance matters for development more, and in more ways than had been recognized for a long time. Changes in the financial services industry are providing immense possibilities for economic development. Grais and Kantur present a framework to help understand the changes occurring in the financial landscape. They also attempt to lay out the opportunities and the challenges the Middle East and Northern Africa region faces in light of these changes. The framework views financial development as a two-way, continuous, and dynamic interaction between, on the one hand, three driving forces shaping the industry and, on the other hand, four stylized dimensions of financial services. These driving forces jointly modify the financial landscape and are at the same time influenced by the effects of these changes. The three driving forces are financial liberalization, technological changes, and market innovation in response to demands for financial services. The four dimensions of financial services that are altered by the forces at play are disintermediation, institutionalization, modernization, and globalization. The authors provide a strategic perspective on the opportunities and challenges the profound changes in the financial industry bring to the Middle East and North Africa region, its policymakers, and market participants.

Download or read book The Role of Occupational Pension Funds in Mauritius written by Dimitri Vittas and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mauritius belongs to a se ...

Download or read book Handbook of International Business Policy written by Philippe Gugler and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2024-04-12 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting essential research on contemporary foreign direct investment policies, this Handbook identifies the wide variety of global policy challenges linked to modern technological, geostrategic and entrepreneurial developments, from electoral uncertainties to rapid digitalization.

Download or read book Regulation and Private Sector Investment in Infrastructure written by Sheoli Pargal and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author assesses the importance of the regulatory framework as a determinant of private sector investment in infrastructure. She uses recently compiled data on private and public sector investment in the water, power, telecommunications, railroads, and roads sectors between 1980 and 1998 in nine countries in Latin America. The author finds that the most significant institutional determinant of private investment volumes is the passage of legislation liberalizing the investment regime. This is important because it indicates that the legal basis for reform is probably more critical in determining the quality of the investment climate than specific aspects of the institutional framework governing private sector participation. In accordance with intuition, the author's results indicate that government action to increase regulatory certainty and minimize the perceived risk of expropriation through the establishment of independent regulatory bodies is a critical determinant of the volume of private investment flows. She also finds that the general relationship of private to public investment is one of substitutability.

Download or read book Scaling Up Community driven Development written by Hans P. Binswanger-Mkhize and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Community-driven development boasts many islands of success, but these have not scaled up to cover entire countries. Binswanger and Aiyar examine the possible obstacles to scaling up, and possible solutions. They consider the theoretical case for community-driven development and case studies of success in both sectoral and multisectoral programs. Obstacles to scaling up include high economic and fiscal costs, adverse institutional barriers, problems associated with the co-production of outputs by different actors on the basis of subsidiarity, lack of adaptation to the local context using field-tested manuals, and lack of scaling-up logistics. The authors consider ways of reducing economic and fiscal costs, overcoming hostile institutional barriers, overcoming problems of co-production, adapting to the local context with field testing, and providing scaling-up logistics. Detailed annexes and checklists provide a guide to program design, diagnostics, and tools. This paper--a product of the Office of the Vice President, Africa Regional Office--is part of a larger effort in the region to improve understanding of community-driven development.

Download or read book The New Comparative Economics written by Simeon Djankov and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: In recent years, comparative economics experienced a revival, with a new focus on comparing capitalist economies. The theme of the new research is that institutions exert a profound influence on economic development. The authors argue that, to understand capitalist institutions, one needs to understand the basic tradeoff between the costs of disorder and those of dictatorship. They then apply this logic to study the structure of efficient institutions, the consequences of colonial transplantation, and the politics of institutional choice. This paper"a product of the Private Sector Advisory Department, Private Sector Development Vice Presidency"is part of a larger effort to understand institutional differences in the regulation of business.

Download or read book Long run Impacts of China s WTO Accession on Farm nonfarm Income Inequality and Rural Poverty written by Kym Anderson and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Many fear China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will impoverish its rural people by way of greater import competition in its agricultural markets. Anderson, Huang, and Ianchovichina explore that possibility bearing in mind that, even if producer prices of some (land-intensive) farm products fall, prices of other (labor-intensive) farm products could rise. Also, the removal of restrictions on exports of textiles and clothing could boost town and village enterprises, so demand for unskilled labor for nonfarm work in rural areas may grow even if demand for farm labor in aggregate falls. New estimates, from the global economywide numerical simulation model known as GTAP, of the likely changes in agricultural and other product prices as a result of WTO accession are drawn on to examine empirically the factor reward implications of China's WTO accession. The results suggest farm-nonfarm and Western-Eastern income inequality may well rise in China but rural-urban income inequality need not. The authors conclude with some policy suggestions for alleviating any pockets of farm household poverty that may emerge as a result of WTO accession. This paper"a product of the Economic Policy Division, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network"is part of a larger effort in the network to assess the impact of China's WTO accession.

Download or read book World Development Report 2005 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Firms and entrepreneurs of all types-from microenterprises to multinationals-play a central role in growth and poverty reduction. Their investment decisions drive job creation, the availability and affordability of goods and services for consumers, and the tax revenues governments can draw on to fund health, education, and other services. Their contribution depends largely on the way governments shape the investment climate in each location-through the protection of property rights, regulation and taxation, strategies for providing infrastructure, interventions in finance and labor markets, and broader governance features such as corruption. The World Development Report 2005 argues that improving the investment climates of their societies should be a top priority for governments. Drawing on surveys of nearly 30,000 firms in 53 developing countries, country case studies, and other new research, the Report explores questions such as: What are the key features of a good investment climate, and how do they influence growth and poverty? What can governments do to improve their investment climates, and how can they go about tackling such a broad agenda? What has been learned about good practice in each of the main areas of the investment climate? What role might selective interventions and international arrangements play in improving the investment climate? What can the international community do to help developing countries improve the investment climates of their societies? In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Bank's new program of Investment Climate Surveys, the Bank's Doing Business Project, and World Development Indicators 2004-an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.

Download or read book World Development Report 2005 written by Warrick Smith and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004-09 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 'World Development Report 2005' is a useful guide to the economic, social and environmental state of the world today. It provides an in-depth analysis of a specific aspect of development.

Download or read book Foreign Direct Investments in Asia written by Chalongphob Sussangkarn and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2011-02-25 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers nine countries of ASEAN and the East Asian area, including major Asian countries, and compares their respective policies to attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). Through comparative study of FDI promotion policies, this book will give policy makers in the area of FDI promotion an overview and comparison of the FDI policies of other countries. In addition, researchers at graduate, post-graduate or professional level will gain from the econometric methodology and detailed definitions of various spillover effects (horizontal and vertical), which will be beneficial to their research. In addition to FDI policy comparison, this book focuses on the various spillover effects of FDI. It separates it into categories: own productivity effects; intra-industry spillover effects; and inter-industry spillover effects (forward and backward linkage effects). While most other studies have only taken econometric tests on own-productivity and intra-industry spillovers, a key advantage to this book is that it also covers the separate effects of inter-industry linkages. Through policy comparison and econometric tests on various spillover effects on economic growth, employment and exports, this book will give policy makers and researchers an innovative and constructive guide to FDI.

Download or read book Foreign Direct Investment and Human Development written by Olivier de Schutter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effect on developing countries of the arrival of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been a subject of controversy for decades in the development community. The debate over the relationship between FDI in developing countries and the progress of these countries towards human development is an ongoing and often heated one. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective combining insights from international investment law, human rights law and economics, this book offers an original contribution to the debate. It explores how improvements ...

Download or read book Transnational Corporations written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: