Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are an important instrument for the protection of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, compared to international trade law, international investment law has so far received only little research attention from an economic point of view. By applying a law...

Recent regional initiatives have been addressed from a Vinerian perspective of regional integration as a combination of trade creation and trade diversion. This is true both of policy-oriented economists, who tend to be critical of the initiatives, and of theorists, who have added dynamic and...

This paper scrutinizes the effects of investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) and national treatment provisions in a two-period model where foreign investment is subject to domestic regulation and a holdup problem. It shows that ISDS can mitigate the holdup problem and increases aggregate...

We argue that the trend toward international investment agreements (IIAs) with stricter investment rules is driven by competitive diffusion, namely defensive moves of developing countries concerned about foreign direct investment (FDI) diversion in favor of competing host countries. Accounting...

We argue that the trend toward international investment agreements (IIAs) with stricter investment rules is driven by competitive diffusion, namely defensive moves of developing countries concerned about foreign direct investment (FDI) diversion in favor of competing host countries. Accounting...