The paper surveys theories of FDI and supporting evidence. A new theory flashes out a unique feature of FDI: hands on management style that enables investors to react in real time to changing economic environments. Equipped with superior intangible know how in screening firms, foreign direct...

This paper analyzes the interaction between the welfare state and immigration policy. We establish a negative relationship between the number of dependents and the extent of the welfare state due to the leakage of benefits. We also explain the determination of immigration policy as the outcome...

Migration of young workers (as distinct from retirees), even when driven in by the generosity of the welfare state, slows down the trend of increasing dependency ratio. But, even though low-skill migration improves the dependency ratio, it neverthe-less burdens the welfare state. Recent studies...

Oates reminds us that tax competition among localities in the presence of capital mobility, may lead to inefficiently low tax rates (and benefits). In contrast, the Tiebout paradigm suggests that tax competition yields an efficient outcome, so that there are no gains from tax coordination. This...

We survey three distinct types of financial crises which took place in the 1990s and the 2000s: (i) The credit implosion leading to severe banking crisis in Japan, (ii) The foreign reserves’ meltdown triggered by foreign hot money flight from frothy economies with fixed exchange rate regimes...

A positive productivity shock in the host country tends typically to increase the volume of the desired foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to the host country, through the standard marginal profitability effect. But, at the same time, such a shock may lower the likelihood of making any new...