This paper studies the direct effect of foreign investment on target firm operating performance and growth. Foreign-invested firms grow in size but not in productivity compared with non-invested firms over a four-year horizon. Decomposing foreign investment into foreign direct investment and...

The paper analyzes Jamaica's experience of low growth despite consistently high investment. Cross-country analysis provides evidence of a significant and negative relationship between total public debt and productivity growth. Looking at the specific channels through which high debt affects...

The paper studies the effects of the real exchange rate (RER) on capital accumulation in Mexico in the period since the late 1980s. By testing for the existence of potential asymmetries, the paper seeks to clarify some of the controversies surrounding the subject. It shows the RER’s long-run...

This paper presents an interpretation of post-1953 Colombian economic growth and a discussion on future outcomes. The interpretation takes the form of a data playback guided by the decentralized equilibrium version of the Cass-Koopmans-Ramsey model. The role of technical change as a driver of...

Financial constraints are frictions that prevent firms from funding all desired investments, which might affect firm value and aggregate economic activity. We investigate whether and how bank governance, especially private vs. non-private bank ownership, affects financial constraints of small...

The paper analyses the impact of venture capital finance on growth and innovation activities of young German firms. Among other variables, our panel of firm data includes data on venture capital funding and patent applications. With statistical matching procedures we draw an adequate control...

The paper considers investment and growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Notwithstanding cross-country differences, investment as a whole has been too low, too heavily tilted toward the public sector, too highly dependent on external influences, and less productive than in...

We estimate public investment gaps in a sample of developing countries using a public investment demand function. We then use GDP per capita projections, forecasts of structural transformation, and three SDG targets (poverty, infant mortality and lower secondary school completion) to predict...

Previous empirical work on the link between domestic and foreign investment provides mixed results which partly depend on the level of aggregation of the data. We argue that the aggregated home country implications of foreign direct investment (FDI) cannot be gauged using firm-level data....

We study the role of competition for the hold-up problem in foreign direct investment in resource-based industries. The host country government is not only unable to commit not to expropriate investment ex post, but is also unable to commit to the provision of local resources. In the case of...