Having passed the "market test", private aid is claimed by its proponents to be better-targeted than official development assistance (ODA). But empirical evidence is largely lacking. We contribute to closing this gap by performing a case study of Nestlé, one of the frontrunners among...

Having passed the “market test”, private aid is claimed by its proponents to be better-targeted than official development assistance (ODA). But empirical evidence is largely lacking. We contribute to closing this gap by performing a case study of Nestlé, one of the frontrunners among...

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...

The paper investigates the role of firm-level productivity and industry-level R&D for MNEs' choice of undertaking FDI, and the share of ownership in foreign affiliates. Two firm-specific datasets on German MNEs with varying equity stakes in Indian affiliates are used to account for the two-step...

The recent boom of investor-state disputes filed under international investment agreements has fueled a controversial academic and policy debate. Despite its importance, there has been very little work to date on the impacts of compensation claims by investors on FDI flows to the responding host...

The previous literature provides a highly ambiguous picture on the impact of trade and investment agreements on FDI. Most empirical studies ignore the actual content of BITs and RTAs, treating them as black boxes, despite the diversity of investment provisions constituting the essence of these...

We focus on investor-state dispute settlement provisions contained in various, though far from all, bilateral investment treaties as a possible determinant of BIT-related effects on bilateral FDI flows. Our estimation results prove to be sensitive to the specification of these provisions as well...

The decisions of foreign investors on technical cooperation versus equity engagements and on the degree of ownership in FDI projects are likely to depend on their relative bargaining position vis-à-vis the host country. India provides an interesting case for analyzing the interplay between...

This study examines the effects of greenfield FDI and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on government size in host countries of FDI. Using panel data for up to 130 countries for the period from 2003-2011, the study specifically tests the compensation hypothesis, suggesting that by...

By tracking the changes in different margins of Theil indices during the period 1995-2015, we re-consider the question of whether bilateral and multilateral donors have targeted aid increasingly to particularly needy recipient countries with relatively good governance in order to improve the...