Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is one avenue for offering assistance to developing countries in their efforts to grow. Small countries typically have limited resources to direct toward investment attraction programs, so the ability to segment the market (of Multinational Corporations looking to invest) is a crucial skill. This book develops and employs an investment preference analysis model to give evidence that homogenous groups of investors can be identified. Once these groups are identified, their needs - specific preference requirements for laws, regulations, incentives, and general conditions - can be more efficiently addressed.

What makes a country attractive to foreign investors? To what extent do conditions of governance and politics matter? This book provides the most systematic exploration to date of these crucial questions at the nexus of politics and economics. Using quantitative data and interviews with investment promotion agencies, investment location consultants, political risk insurers, and decision makers at multinational corporations, Nathan Jensen arrives at a surprising conclusion: Countries may be competing for international capital, but government fiscal policy--both taxation and spending--has little impact on multinationals' investment decisions. Although government policy has a limited ability to determine patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, political institutions are central to explaining why some countries are more successful in attracting international capital. First, democratic institutions lower political risks for multinational corporations. Indeed, they lead to massive amounts of foreign direct investment. Second, politically federal institutions, in contrast to fiscally federal institutions, lower political risks for multinationals and allow host countries to attract higher levels of FDI inflows. Third, the International Monetary Fund, often cited as a catalyst for promoting foreign investment, actually deters multinationals from investment in countries under IMF programs. Even after controlling for the factors that lead countries to seek IMF support, IMF agreements are associated with much lower levels of FDI inflows.

"Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) studies have evolved as one of the mainstreams in business strategy. This book presents a comprehensive perspective on the motivations behind the studies, the effects of FDI, and how it can be utilized and extended to other areas of studies. Written with a global perspective, this book not only touches upon business strategies but also covers government policies toward promoting and attracting FDI for industrial and economic development. The author, with his vast experience in consulting and research projects for multinational companies, international organizations and governments, examines real world business practices of Eastern firms and how they relate to their Western counterparts, thus making this book a valuable and practical reference not only for students, but for practitioners, too."--

Foreign direct investment (FDI) and multinational corporations (MNCs)--for better and worse--play a large and growing role in shaping our world. The integrating thesis of this book is the inevitability of heterogeneity in FDI and MNCs and, accordingly, the imperative of disaggregation. Large companies doing business on a global basis increasingly dominate the production and marketing of the world's goods and services. The importance of these companies continues to grow while the debate about their nature and effects remains mired in a long-standing stalemate couched in strong black and white terms. Stephen D. Cohen seeks to reconcile this impasse by analyzing multinational corporations and foreign direct investment in an eclectic, nuanced manner. The core thesis is that an accurate understanding of the nature and impact of these phenomena comes from acknowledging the dominance of heterogeneity, perceptions, and ambiguity and the paucity of universal truths. This approach should contribute significantly to both a better academic understanding and a more productive policy debate of an increasingly important element of the world economy.

Americans have long been ambivalent toward foreign direct investment in the United States. Foreign multinational corporations may be a source of capital, technology, and jobs. But what are the implications for US workers, firms, communities, and consumers as the United States remains the most popular destination for foreign multinational investment? Theodore H. Moran and Lindsay Oldenski find that foreign multinational firms that invest in the United States are, alongside US-headquartered American multinationals, the most productive and highest-paying segment of the US economy. These firms conduct more research and development, provide more value added to US domestic inputs, and export more goods and services than other firms in the US economy. The superior technology and management techniques they employ spill over horizontally and vertically to improve the performance of local firms and workers. As the United States wants not only to expand employment but also create well-paying jobs that reverse the falling earnings that many US workers and middle class families have suffered in recent decades, it is more important than ever to enhance the United States as a destination for multinational investors

This Festschrift in honour of Professor Yair Aharoni, a pioneer in the field of international business, looks at several of these new trends in FDI, what they will mean for firms and governments, and the opportunities created by these developments to enrich or extend extant theory.

With the emergence of a truly global marketplace, regions now face far greater competition in attracting outside investment, and multinational companies have to consider local conditions on many levels before choosing to invest. Foreign Direct Investment and the Global Economy looks at the pattern of FDI and its impacts on the global, regional (trade block), national and sub-national scales. The contributors describe the much discussed global-local interlay apparent in the operations of multinational companies and their involvement with 'regulatory' institutions at different levels, from the global to the local.