One of the best documented empirical facts in economic research has been the positive relationship between internal finance and cash flows and capital expenditures and investment. But disputes about the analytical basis for the cash flow theory have been largely unresolved. There are two...

More than 200 Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) operate in 48 countries. Their combined assets exceed $200 billion, with an annual growth rate between 12 percent and 15 percent. The regulatory regime governing IFIs varies significantly across countries. A number of international...

The authors examine the relationship between foreign investment and the attributes of emerging market countries and firms in which investment is made. Their findings indicate that countries with higher levels of economic development and floating exchange rate regimes tend to have greater ability...

The relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper the authors first estimate for 16 countries a measure...

Most analyses of property rights and economic development point to the negative influence of insecure property rights on private investment. The authors focus instead on the largely unexamined effects of insecure property rights on government policy choices. They identify one significant...

China's World Trade Organization (WTO) accession will have major implications for China and present both opportunities and challenges for East Asia. Ianchovichina and Walmsley assess the possible channels through which China's accession to the WTO could affect East Asia and quantify these...

Foreign direct investment brings host countries capital, productive facilities, and technology transfers as well as employment, new job skills, and management expertise. It is important to the Russian Federation, where incentives for competition are limited and incentives to becoming efficient...

Much foreign direct investment is between high-income countries, but investment in some developing and transition regions, while still modest, grew rapidly in the 1990s. Adjusting for market size, much investment stays close to home; adjusting for distance, much heads toward the countries with...

Foreign direct investment is a key ingredient of successful economic growth and development in developing countries--partly because the very essence of economic development is the rapid and efficient transfer and cross-border adoption of"best practices."Foreign direct investment is especially...

Investment rates in Uganda are similar to others in Africa, - averaging slightly more than ten percent annually, with a median value of just under one percent. But the country's profit rates are considerably lower. These results are consistent with the view that Ugandan firms display more...