This Perspective probes the complexities of umbrella clauses in international investment agreements, spotlighting their inherent legal ambiguities and potential for misuse. It advocates for careful negotiation and refinement of these clauses or, alternatively, their elimination to ensure...

This paper intends to combine two fields in the economic literature by examining empirically the FDI pattern – horizontal versus vertical – within the European Union and the relevance of trade integration as a potential determinant of investment flows over the period 1995-2009. We capture...

Asian countries should enhance regional investment facilitation rulemaking despite their diverse level of development. This Perspective discusses the various courses of action Asian countries could take to improve regional investment facilitation rulemaking and the major challenges they face.

We investigate the empirical determinants of China's outward direct investment (ODI). It is found that China's investments in developed and developing countries are driven by different sets of factors. Subject to the differences between developed and developing countries, there is evidence that...

Foreign direct investments (FDI) are an important determinant of economic growth. Countries try to attract mobile capital in order to foster economic development, albeit FDI might increase regional inequality since the many different regions of a country usually do not receive FDI in equal...

Current literature shows a significant negative impact of terrorism on countries economies. We explore this relationship in more detail. Using an unbalanced panel of over 160 countries for up to 25 years and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) we show a decrease in FDI as a consequence of...