Determinants of FDI in Developing Countries: Has Globalization Changed the Rules of the Game?.

There is a startling gap between current thinking on, allegedly, globalization-induced changes in international competition for foreign direct investment (FDI) and the lack of recent empirical evidence on shifts in the relative importance of traditional and non-traditional determinants of FDI in developing countries. We attempt to narrow this gap by making use of comprehensive survey data, collected by the European Round Table of Industrialists, on investment conditions in 28 developing countries since the late 1980s. Applying Spearman correlation coefficients and panel-data regression models, we show that surprisingly little has changed so far. Traditional market-related determinants are still dominant factors shaping the distribution of FDI. If at all, the importance of non-traditional FDI determinants has increased only modestly.Direktinvestition; Globalisierung; Entwicklungsländer;

Globalization of the automobile industry : traditional locations under pressure?.

n.a.Kraftfahrzeugindustrie; Globalisierung; Internationaler Wettbewerb; Standortwettbewerb; Beschäftigungseffekt; Deutschland; USA; Japan;

Enveloping algebra valued gauge transformations for non-abelian gauge groups on non-commutative spaces

An enveloping algebra valued gauge field is constructed, its components are functions of the Lie algebra valued gauge field and can be constructed with the Seiberg-Witten map. This allows the formulation of a dynamics for a finite number of gauge field components on non-commutative spaces.Comment: 13 page

External Fields as Intrinsic Geometry

There is an interesting dichotomy between a space-time metric considered as external field in a flat background and the same considered as an intrinsic part of the geometry of space-time. We shall describe and compare two other external fields which can be absorbed into an appropriate redefinition of the geometry, this time a noncommutative one. We shall also recall some previous incidences of the same phenomena involving bosonic field theories. It is known that some such theories on the commutative geometry of space-time can be re-expressed as abelian-gauge theory in an appropriate noncommutative geometry. The noncommutative structure can be considered as containing extra modes all of whose dynamics are given by the one abelian action.Comment: 19 pages, Late

Globalization of the automobile industry: traditional locations under pressure?

Even though the automobile industry is technologically advanced, the increasing integration of low-income countries into the global division of labor has put competitive pressure on traditional automobile producing countries. New end-producers emerged in Asia, Latin America as well as Southern and Central Europe. In addition, the automobile industries of Germany, Japan and the United States engaged in outsourcing of relatively labor intensive segments of the value chain, especially on a regional level. Our analysis of the labor market effects of these developments supports the predictions of trade models: Low-skilled workers and labor intensive subsectors of the automobile industry in traditional locations suffered deteriorating wage and employment prospects in the process of globalization. The adjustment to fiercer competition from below differed considerably between Germany, Japan and the United States. Economic restructuring was least pronounced in the US automobile industry, largely due to the resistance of trade unions. As a result, the employment record and the world-market performance of US automobile producers turned out to be poor compared to their German and Japanese counterparts

Intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment: A disaggregated analysis

This paper aims at overcoming several shortcomings of previous empirical studies on the relationship between IPR protection and FDI. First of all, we use sectorally disaggregated FDI data for a large sampie of host countries. Second, we address the proposition that stronger IPR protection raises not only the quantity but also the quality of FDI. Third, we check to which extent the relationship between IPR protection and FDI is affected by applying alternative measures of IPR protection. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis that the threat of an unauthorized use of intellectual-property-reiated assets and, thus, FDI depends on industry as weIl as host-country characteristics. Furthermore, stronger IPR protection may help induce high-quality FDI

Determinants of FDI in Developing Countries: Has Globalization Changed the Rules of the Game?

There is a startling gap between current thinking on, allegedly, globalization-induced changes in international competition for foreign direct investment (FDI) and the lack of recent empirical evidence on shifts in the relative importance of traditional and non-traditional determinants of FDI in developing countries. We attempt to narrow this gap by making use of comprehensive survey data, collected by the European Round Table of Industrialists, on investment conditions in 28 developing countries since the late 1980s. Applying Spearman correlation coefficients and panel-data regression models, we show that surprisingly little has changed so far. Traditional market-related determinants are still dominant factors shaping the distribution of FDI. If at all, the importance of non-traditional FDI determinants has increased only modestly

Intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment: the role of industry and host-country characteristics

This paper aims at overcoming several shortcomings of previous empirical studies on the relationship between IPR protection and FDI. First, FDI is analyzed on a sectorally and regionally disaggregated level. Second, we address the proposition that stronger IPR protection raises not only the quantity, but also the quality of FDI. Third, we check to which extent the relationship between IPR protection and FDI is affected by applying alternative measures of IPR protection. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis that the threat of an unauthorized use of intellectual-property-related assets and, thus, FDI depends on industry as well as host-country characteristics. Furthermore, stronger IPR protection tends to induce high-quality FDI

Foreign direct investment and economic growth in developing countries: how relevant are host-country and industry characteristics?

Conclusive evidence supporting the widely held view that developing countries should draw on foreign direct investment (FDI) to spur economic development is surprisingly hard to come by. We raise the proposition that results on the growth impact of FDI are ambiguous because highly aggregated FDI data, used in virtually all previous empirical studies, blur the differences between resourceseeking, market-seeking and efficiency-seeking FDI and ignore the compatibility of different types of FDI with economic conditions prevailing in the host country. Analysing US FDI stocks in major sectors and specific manufacturing industries in a large number of developing countries, we show that positive growth effects of FDI are anything but guaranteed. Rather, hostcountry and industry characteristics as well as the interplay between both sets of characteristics have an important say on the growth impact of FDI in developing countries