Corporate governance and FDI: Firm-level evidence from Japanese FDI into the US

Better corporate governance can reduce the scope for increasing shareholder value and thus discourage M&A FDI inflows. Sound governance may also discourage non-M&A FDI inflows in light of the complementary relationship between M&A and non-M&A FDI. We use firm-level evidence to empirically examine the effect of US corporate governance on Japanese M&A and non-M&A FDI. We find that two landmark US corporate governance regulations help explain the sharp drop in both Japanese M&A and non-M&A FDI into the US during the 1990s. Our evidence suggests that corporate governance may affect both M&A and non-M&A FDI.