The authors focus on policies facilitating firm adjustment to globalization. They briefly review the effects of trade and investment liberalization on firms, focusing on within-industry effects. They postulate that governments' role in supporting the process is to (1) ensure that firms face...

This paper provides an analysis of the two channels of regional integration: integration via markets and integration via agreements. Given that East Asia and Latin America are two fertile regions where both forms of integrations have taken place, the authors examine the experiences of these two...

Over the past decades, many countries have implemented significant reforms to foster capital market development. Latin American countries were at the forefront of this process. The authors analyze where Latin American capital markets stand after these reforms. They find that despite the intense...

Interest in access to finance has increased significantly in recent years, as growing evidence suggests that lack of access to credit prevents lower-income households and small firms from financing high return investment projects, having an adverse effect on growth and poverty alleviation. This...

This paper argues that the dominant policy paradigm on financial development is increasingly insufficient to address big emerging issues that are particularly relevant for financial systems in Latin America. This paradigm was shaped over the past decades by a fundamental shift in thinking toward...

China has emerged as one of the top recipients of foreign direct investment in the world. Meanwhile, the successful transition experience of many Central and Eastern European countries has also allowed them to attract an increasing share of global foreign direct investment. In this paper, the...

Many countries spend significant resources on investment promotion agencies in the hope of attracting inflows of foreign direct investment. Despite the importance of this question for public policy choices, little is known about the effectiveness of investment promotion efforts. This study uses...

The authors examine the determinants of entry by foreign firms using information on 515 Chinese industries at the provincial level during 1998-2001. The analysis, rooted in the new economic geography, focuses on market and supplier access within and outside the province of entry, as well as...

This paper uses micro data from the Indonesian Census of Manufacturing to analyze the causal relationship between foreign ownership and plant productivity. To control for the possible endogeneity of the FDI decision, the difference in differences approach is combined with a matching technique....

The authors use a firm-level panel data set from Romania to examine whether the nationality of foreign investors affects the degree of vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. Investors' country of origin may matter for spillovers to domestic producers in upstream sectors (supplying...