FDI, Technology Spillovers, Growth, and Income Inequality: A Selective Survey

The present paper, restricting its attention to the empirical economics literature, attempts to gauge current thinking on the question of whether FDI causes economic growth. Since technological spillovers are a key determinant of long run economic growth, the survey begins with the firm level evidence on technological spillovers of FDI on domestic firms. The macro FDI and growth literature is covered next. Finally, we examine the effect of FDI on income inequality and/or employment, skills, or jobs. In many contexts policies that exacerbate income inequality come under special scrutiny even if they are welfare enhancing. Our major finding is that FDI is generally associated with positive technological spillovers, economic growth, and increasing income inequality. For all three of these results, however, there are significant counter examples in the literature which must be respected.

Sex Discrimination via Anal Gland Secretion in a Territorial Monogamous Mammal

Monogamy in mammals is relatively unusual, only occurring in 3–5% and to an even lesser degree in rodents. Monogamy exists in two forms, facultative which evolved due to female dispersion and obligate when male care is needed for offspring survival. Most monogamous rodents use scent marking as a form of territorial defence to obtain exclusive access to vital resources. Intrasexual competition occurs in many species to maintain pair bonds and also to signal presence within a territory. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that resident obligate monogamous Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) can discriminate between the sexes when investigating anal gland secretions (AGS) from unknown (stranger) mated pairs. We predicted that, due to intrasexual competition, dominant territorial male and female beavers will display a stronger response to AGS of same-sex conspecifics. Territorial intrusion by mated pair strangers was simulated by the formation of experimental scent mounds (ESM) with AGS. Our results showed that both sexes (1) displayed a stronger response to the male AGS in sniffing duration, (2) physically responded for longer durations towards male AGS and (3) overmarked male AGS more frequently. We infer that obligate monogamous mammals can determine the sexual identity of intruding conspecifics of a mated pair via AGS and that intruding males may pose more of a threat to resident males via intrasexual competition and resident females due to the long-term costs, such as infanticide and abortion, of a new dominant male