It is often claimed that investment treaties will dissuade host countries from phasing out foreignowned CO2-intensive production. This paper uses a very simple economic framework to examine how such a problem might be alleviated through treaty reform, including increased carve-outs from...

Halting the ongoing global loss of biodiversity will require extensive phase-out of harmful production. A significant share of the affected production will be foreign-owned, and can therefore potentially be covered by investment treaties. These treaties are sometimes alleged to dissuade host...

Protecting biodiversity will require the phase-out of harmful production at a large scale. However, some of these stranded investments will be foreign-owned, and can therefore be protected by the more than 2,600 investment treaties that are in force worldwide. These treaties' compensation...

International investment agreements have provoked intense criticism in the policy debate during recent years. Particularly contentious has been their "ISDS" mechanisms, which enable investors to litigate against host countries. This paper examines whether host countries would be better off with...

International investment agreements have become increasingly controversial. The agreements are alleged to be beset with a large number of deficiencies that harm host countries in particular. For instance, they are said to cause "regulatory chill", to distorts investment patterns, and to lead to...

This paper investigates the design and implications of international investment agreements. These are ubiquitous, potent and heavily criticized state-to-state treaties that protect foreign investment against host country policies. We show that optimal agreements cause national but not global...

EU member state investment treaties have been criticized for potentially deterring EU countries from pursuing desirable policy measures. This paper explores whether these treaties can nonetheless serve a beneficial geoeconomic function for the EU by safeguarding EU investments in five minerals...

This paper examines the electoral impact of increased foreign tourism, using data from Croatia. Exploiting exogenous variation in travel times to coastal municipalities from improved road infrastructure, I show that foreign tourism reduces nationalist voting and increases the center-left vote...

Using World Bank data on institutional quality and the KOF Globalization Index, we examine over 100 countries from 1992 to 2010 to analyze the relationship between economic and social globalization and six measures of institutional quality. Theoretically, the incentives of elites to respond to...

Good health is crucial for human and economic development. In particular poor health in childhood seems to be of utmost concern since it causes irreversible damage and have implications later in life. Recent research suggests globalization is a strong force affecting adult and child health...