Improvements in financial regulation and supervision in the Central American region (CAPDR) have strengthened financial stability. Prudential instruments with potential macroeconomic effects have been introduced. Nonetheless, compared with the larger Latin American and selected industrial...

Many developing countris now actively solicit foreign investment, offering income tax holidays, import duty exemptions, and subsidies to foreign firms. One reason for subsidizing these firms is the positive externalities as foreign technology is transferred from foreign to domestic firms. This...

This chapter reviews the available evidence on the linkages between trade reform, labor markets, and FDI. We begin by drawing on studies of sixteen countries that underwent trade reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. These sixteen countries were chosen because of their inclusion in the United Nations...

This paper uses Indonesian data to analyze the impact of foreign ownership on wages. After controlling for worker and firm characteristics, we find that foreign firms pay a wage premium, which is larger for skilled relative to unskilled workers.

In an effort to shed some light on the larger question of labor standardsvand globalization, we seek to examine compliance with minimum wage legislation in Indonesia. Indonesia is an ideal case study because the govern ment made minimum wages a central component of its labor market policies in...

This paper studies the determinants of foreign land acquisition for large-scale agriculture. To do so, gravity models are estimated using data on bilateral investment relationships, together with newly constructed indicators of agro-ecological suitability in areas with low population density as...

The paper shows that Asia's degree of financial integration, both with the world and within the region remains low by various measures. The paper also provides empirical evidence that greater financial integration can support economic rebalancing in statistically meaningful ways. The implication...

This paper takes a closer look at the role of location advantages in the spatial distribution of MNE R&D activity. In doing so, we have returned to first principles by revisiting our understanding of L and O advantages and their interaction. We revisit the meaning of L advantages, and offer a...

This paper analyzes macroeconomic determinants of the foreign exchange risk premium in two Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries that peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The analysis is based on the stochastic discount factor methodology, which...