Improving Russia's policy on foreign direct investment

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 are blunted by interregional barriers to trade, weak creditor rights, and administrative barriers to new entrants. The authors ague that the old policy paradigm of foreign direct investment (established before World War II and prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s) still governs Russia. In this paradigm there are only two reasons for foreign direct investment: access to inputs for production and access to markets for outputs. Such kinds of foreign direct investment, although beneficial, are often based on generating exports that exploit cheap labor or natural resources, or are aimed at penetrating protected local markets, not necessarily at world standards for price and quality. They contend that Russia should phase out high tariffs and non-tariff protection for the domestic market, most tax preferences for foreign investors (which don't increase foreign direct investment but do reduce fiscal revenues), and many restrictions on foreign investment. They recommend that Russia switch to a modern approach to foreign direct investment by: 1) Amending the newly enacted foreign direct investment law so that it will grant non-discriminatory"national treatment"to foreign investors for both right of establishment, and post-establishment operations, abolish conditions (such as local content restrictions) inconsistent with the World Trade Organization agreement on trade-related investment measures (TRIMs), and make investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms more efficient (giving foreign investors the chance to seek neutral binding international arbitration, for example). 2) Strengthening enforcement of property rights. 3) Simplifying registration procedures for foreign investors, to make them transparent and rules-based. 4) Extending guarantee schemes covering basic non-commercial risks.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Foreign Direct Investment,Economic Theory&Research,National Governance,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Política de crescimento urbano intencional e acidental (com referência ao Brasil)

A “Política de Crescimento Urbano, refere-se a várias questões, tais como padrões nacionais de povoamento, problemas de amplo e rápido crescimento das áreas metropolitanas, desemprego e subemprego e os problemas fiscais e administrativos dos governos municipais. Esses problemas, por sua vez, são afetados por diversas ações governamentais — não somente ações empreendidas deliberadamente, com objetivos urbanos em vista, como também por razões  bastante diferentes e sem levar em consideração seus prováveis efeitos “urbanos”

Heat transfer analysis of sludge storage in the K east basinweasel pit

This document estimates the temperature of the sludge inventory projected to be stored in the K East Basin Weasel Pit during the Spent Nuclear Fuel Project. Hydrogen generation rates are also estimated. Since many of the needed sludge properties are not well known, the analysis considered a range values to show the sensitivity of the results

A Proposed Estimator for Dynamic Probit Models

In this paper, new estimating methods proposed for dynamic and static probit models with panel data. Simulation studies show that the proposed estimators work relatively well

Integrated water treatment system test strategy

This document describes the operational testing at the KE Basin planned for obtaining information necessary for the successful design of the Integrated Water Treatment System and thereby facilitate the efficient removal of the fuel, sludge and debris from the K Basins within the SNF Project budgets and schedules. The document includes the description of the operational testing to be conducted, the samples and measurements to be taken, the sample analysis to be performed, and the use of the information obtained

A Proposed Estimator for Dynamic Probit Models

In this paper, new estimating methods proposed for dynamic and static probit models with panel data. Simulation studies show that the proposed estimators work relatively well