Regional integration is often considered a means to improve member countries’ attractiveness to foreign direct investment (FDI). But regional integration agreements (RIAs) as well as FDI are too diverse to allow for generalized verdicts. Our case studies on Mercosur in Latin America, ASEAN and...

Policymakers in developing countries have increasingly pinned their hopes on bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in order to improve their chances in the worldwide competition for foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the effectiveness of BITs in inducing higher FDI inflows is still open to...

This paper studies why multinational firms often share ownership of a foreign affiliate with a local partner even in the absence of government restrictions on ownership. We show that shared ownership may arise, if (i) the partner owns assets that are potentially important for the investment...

This paper investigates Samuelson's (JEP, 2004) argument that technical progress of the trade partner may hurt the home country. We illustrate this prospect in a simple Ricardian model for sitations with outward knowledge spillovers. Within this framework Samuelson's "Act II" effects may occur....

We contribute to the nascent literature on the heterogeneity of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the relevance of firm characteristics for analyzing the determinants of outward foreign direct investment (FDI). The focus is on the role of firm-level heterogeneity when MNEs decide on the share...

This paper analyzes China's economic performance in the last 25 years and discusses its prospect for growth in the future. China has enjoyed high annual GDP growth rates of about ten percent in the last 25 years. Exports and investment were the two driving forces of the growth process. FDI plays...

This paper provides a computable general equilibrium analysis of the medium to long-run impact of FDI inflows on poverty and income distribution in Bolivia. The CGE analysis addresses several important transmission channels which have been neglected in the empirical literature by (i)...

This paper analyzes a stylized model of international capital mobility and diffusion of embodied technologies from North to South. The South can fall behind in terms of technologies or get trapped in a situation, in which it is unable to attract foreign capital and embodied technologies, if its...

We study the North-South diffusion of technologies embodied in internationally mobile capital in a framework of intertemporal global welfare maximization. Convergence of the growth rates of technical change in the North and South always occurs in the long-run. However, the degree to which the...

This paper introduces intra- and inter-sectoral technology diffusion via FDI and imports into a recursive-dynamic CGE model for climate policy analyses. It analyzes China's accession to a Post Kyoto emission regime that keeps global emissions from 2012 on constant. Due to ongoing energy...