Investment treaties currently address two conceptually distinct economic problems. The first is dynamic inconsistency of host state policy – i.e. the possibility that a host state will offer attractive conditions to new foreign investment and then renege on the bargain once the investment has...

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...