Browsing by Subject "foreign direct investment"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Distributional Consequences and Executive Regime Types: The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment Incentives
    (2015-07) Beitman, Aaron
    This dissertation examines variation in the provision of foreign direct investment (FDI) incentives. If FDI is crucial for economic growth, why do some countries offer high levels of incentives to attract FDI, while other countries do not? This study identifies the political dimensions behind FDI incentives provision in democratic countries. I argue that provision of FDI incentives depends on the distributional consequences of FDI and a country's executive regime type. FDI inflows compete up wages and drive down rents, which implies that labor prefers high levels of FDI and FDI incentives, while native capital opposes FDI and FDI incentives. These preferences towards FDI incentives are moderated, however, by a country's executive regime type. Parliamentary democracies, which are more supportive of labor's interests, are expected to provide higher levels of FDI incentives as compared to presidential democracies, which are less supportive of labor. After deriving testable hypotheses using the tools of game theory, I examine the politics of FDI incentives provision by analyzing an original cross-national dataset of FDI incentives generated with machine learning techniques. I then explore the politics of FDI incentives provision by comparing case studies of Poland, a parliamentary democracy, and Romania, a presidential democracy. A final empirical chapter uses unique survey data from Poland to study individual-level attitudes towards FDI incentives.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Effect of Transnational Farmland Investments on the Ghanaian Economy
    (2016-08) Choi, Donggul
    Transnational investments in farmland in countries where agriculture is a relatively large share of the economy are recent and controversial. Some economists view these investments as developmental opportunities including capital deepening, new technology, and employment opportunities. Others view these investments as land grabs, emphasizing the dislocation of local farmers and insufficient compensation for land use. However, these views are not based on structural growth model analyses. This research investigates how these seemingly conflicting effects interact with each other in the process of economic growth by fitting a dynamic general equilibrium model to Ghanaian data. Capital and land markets are modeled to be segmented between domestic and foreign agents. The differing effects of two common foreign investment activities, grain farming and biofuel production, are investigated. Both entail the displacement of local capital and labor in agriculture, which has economy-wide effects over time. Grain farming investments tend to promote capital accumulation and increase income and consumption over the transition, whereas labor income is adversely affected. Biofuel projects induce the reverse. Results suggest that the current predominance of foreign investment in biofuel production is likely to increase labor income and household welfare, measured by consumption level, yet leads to a decline in national income in the long run. Results identify the relative labor intensity of technology on foreign-operated farms, which affects the returns to domestic capital and the pace of capital deepening, as a major determinant of the long-term effect of farmland investments.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Within-Host Location Determinants of Employment in Foreign-Owned Establishments in the U.S., 2000-2011: A survey of business climate, vertical, horizontal, and export platform motivations
    (2015-08) Marchio, Nicholas
    The objective of this exploratory study is to assess the effects of within-host location determinants on the intensity of foreign investment as measured by employment in foreign-owned establishments. This statistical analysis is unique for its use of firm-level microdata from the National Establishment Time-series, which tracks business activity in U.S. establishments over time and isolates the universe of firms that were at one point foreign-owned from 2000 to 2011. Using a series of mixed models with time, industry, metro, and state fixed effects, this study finds that the most important drivers of employment intensity in foreign-owned establishments are firm-level characteristics, vertical factors pertaining to labor supply and wages, local industrial specialization, business attraction subsidies, market capacity, and investor country characteristics. Measures accounting for business climate, human capital formation, and information-based assets did not offer evidence of a consistent and robust relationship with establishment level employment patterns, however more work is needed.