Globalisation and trade integration have positioned Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a development imperative for many developing countries, including Southern African Development Community (SADC) economies. Despite concerted efforts both at individual country level and at regional level, FDI flows to the SADC region have declined compared to other regions in the world. The main reasons posited for SADC's inability to attract and retain FDI include negative risk perceptions; a weak ease of doing business environment, and endemic corruption. Hence, the study seeks to investigate the relationship between FDI inflows and corruption and ease of doing business in SADC. The research applies Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) analysis to all 16 SADC countries over a period of 2010 to 2019. The results show that although both corruption and ease of doing business are significantly and positively relate to FDI inflows in SADC, ease of doing business affects FDI to a greater extent compared to corruption. In addition, the inclusion of the interaction between corruption and ease of doing business shows that FDI inflows are more closely attracted by ease of doing business than by corruption.

Background: Regulation (EU) 2019/452 provides a European Union framework for the screening of direct investments from non-EU countries on the grounds of security or public order. It has taken effect for three years; however, Sweden is at a stage of preparatory to enact such a mechanism. This is targeted at foreign direct investments from third-world countries, Chinese companies being one of the main investors in Sweden. However, there are conflicting views on this new regulation and an overall lack of research regarding how the Regulation (EU) 2019/452 may potentially impact Chinese outbound foreign direct investment in Sweden due to the highly dynamic legal and business environment that exists in the EU and China, respectively. Sweden is one of the EU member states that has been attracting Chinese FDI in the past decade – for example, many famous Swedish companies have been acquired partially or wholly, such as Volvo Cars, Volvo AB, Polestar, Oatly, Spotify, Nevs and Acne. Purpose: Our research focus of the relationship between the new EU FDI screening regulation and China outward FDI to EU. As China as a rising player in EU, it is interesting to assess whether Chinese investors are potentially affected by the EU FDI Screening from Sweden point of view.  Method: We are mainly conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis based on the historical 65 M&A cases happened from 2002 to 2019, including 51 Chinese majority acquisitions of Swedish parent companies and 14 minority acquisitions, which these mino­rity holdings are included, as many are large investments and may lead to an investor’s becoming the single largest owner in a company. The identified M&A cases are analysed and categorized according to the Regulation Article 4’s specific requirement. We analyse various aspects to get insights of the potential impacts of the Regulation to China FDI in Sweden. Conclusion:  In Sweden, we believe that the Regulation and the upcoming screening mechanism may not affect Chinese FDI in Sweden drastically due to the changes in Chinese FDI strategy and motivations from cross-border M&A to greenfield investment, and change in the role of Chinese SOEs acquiring from strategic assets to industrial and consumer advance technology. And other inferred likelihood may include, the possibility of circumventing FDI screening through portfolio investment and direct ownership and transfer of technology and assets.

Foreign direct investments, FDI, have been increasing a lot the latest years and a significant part of the total investments made are allocated to the real es-tate industry. This paper is investigating the impact of several di˙erent macro variables on foreign direct investment allocated to real estate at the Swedish market. The objective of the thesis is to investigate what factors that a˙ects the inflow of FDI, i.e. are there any factors that can be used as indicators for an attractive market seen from a foreign investor perspective? This is done by regression analysis on a data set containing monthly data with 146 observa-tions, where the levels of foreign direct investments is the dependent variable and the di˙erent factors are the independent variables. The variables used in the regression are chosen based on earlier findings regarding their impact on FDI, but applied on a developed country. The variables are di˙erent ma-jor macroeconomic variables such as lagged transaction volume, stock market performance, inflation, currency level, interest rate and unemployment. The findings of the regression are that both lagged transaction volume and level of unemployment are significant variables on a 1% and 5% level respectively. The results suggest that investors tend to invest in hot markets and follow each other, plausibly that smaller investors shadows pioneers on the specific market. Level of unemployment was found significant with a negative sign, meaning that when unemployment levels are decreasing, the transaction volume will increase. Seeing decreasing unemployment as a factor for a prospering country, it is plausible that the parameter has an impact on the real estate transaction volume. Variables not found support for are stock performance, inflation, currency levels and interest rate. / Utländska direktinvesteringar har ökat markant de senaste åren och en sig-nifikant del av dessa investeringar I fastigheter. Den här rapporten undersöker inverkan av olika makrofaktorer på nivån av utländska direktinvesteringar på den svenska marknaden. Målet med rapporten är att undersöka om några av dessa faktorer kan användas som indikatorer för hur attraktiv den svenska fastighetsmarknaden är för utländska investerare. Det här har undersökts med hjälp av regressionsanalys på data som samlats på månadsbasis med 146 ob-servationer. Den beroende variabeln är nivån av utländska direktinvesteringar och de oberoende variablerna är de olika makrofaktorerna. De oberoende vari-ablerna är valda baserat på tidigare forskning, variabler som börsutveckling, BNP, nivå på arbetslöshet, laggad investeringsvolym med flera. Resultatet av regressionen visar att laggad investeringsvolym och nivån på arbetslöshet är signifikanta på 1% respektive 5% nivå. Resultatet implicerar att investerare föl-jer varandra, alternativt att de baserar beslut på samma faktorer när de väljer att investera. Arbetslösheten verkar ha någon slags implikation på framtida nivåer av utländska investeringar. Variablerna som inte var signifikanta var börsutveckling, inflation, växelkurs samt reporänta.

Foreign direct investment flows are an important theme in the analysis of global capital flows. The study aims to analyse the effect a withdrawal of FDI has on the economy of Brazil. This is based on the sharp decrease FDI inflows have seen during 2020. The study is based on the theory of David Ricardo and microeconomic and macroeconomic FDI theories. A vector autoregressive model (VAR) was applied using the Toda andYamamoto methodology. The findings show that FDI inflows are positively affected by an increase in GDP and negatively affected by an increase in real average monthly wages. Furthermore, no effect of FDI on any of the considered variables could be determined. This can be attributed to the complexity of the Brazilian economy during the considered period of March 2012 – October 2021, as well as a possible omitted variable bias. This thesis is intended to serve as an avenue for further research on the effect FDI withdrawals have on the Brazilian economy.

The purpose of this paper is to build a model that incorporates current data of Africa, both regarding risks and opportunities into a strategic framework that should enable a more informed foreign direct investment decision for multinational enterprises (MNEs). The parameters used in the model were carefully chosen as determinants to foreign direct investment (FDI) based on extensive literature reviews. The model currently covers 101 major cities in 40 African countries. The model calculates and ranks indexes of African cities in terms of prospective investment opportunities. It is a general model with the flexibility of adapting to the user’s specific needs, since they can be highly heterogeneous depending on the industry and the type of to FDI considers. To test the validity of the model, standardized weights were used and the results were compared to current reports of FDI inflows to Africa. The results given by the model were to some extent compliable with the result of current FDI inflows, which thereby can be seen as sign of validity.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is played a vital role for boosting up the economies of developing countries. Hence, it is necessary to know the factors that determines the flows of FDI in the developing countries. This study has attempted to investigate how different factors affect the inflow of foreign direct investment in South Asian Countries. To attain the objective this study has collected data on the respective variables for 45 years and considered seven countries. The relationship between different economic variables and their overall impact on FDI inflows have been examined through various panel models like basic pooled OLS estimation, entity fixed effect model, time fixed effect estimation and random effect model. The outcome of this study is that GDP of the country is the main factor behind the FDI inflows in South Asian countries.

The work briefly summarizes, the analysis emerged by studying two particular moments in Mexican history with regards to its energy policies: with principal focus on the years of oil expropriation in 1938 and the promulgation of the Energy Reform of December of 2013 with the addition of exploring how the seek for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), appears as a factor of international economics that has influenced these processes. Since Enrique Peña Nieto arrived to power, the energy model of the Mexican Republic have experimented its biggest transformations after seventy-five years of protectionism. This last reform took to an end the monopoly in industry of the national oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). México belongs now to the North American Free Trade Agreement, previously non-existent when in the 30s president Lázaro Cardenas Del Rio elicited support of the population to expropriate the oil and gas industry. The purpose of this study is to analyze how historical driving forces on a geopolitical perspective, can influence the process of policy-making on the Mexican energy sector. Oil has been known as the blood of the political and economic system of Mexico. To this end, the thesis relies on Classical Geopolitics that combines the Realist Theory of International relations to explore the historical driving forces affecting the outcome of energy policies. With the classification of the geopolitical drivers, identified adopting the model of analysis of the international system proposed by Mark E. Williams, it is possible to reveal implications on the undergone changes in policymaking, especially on energy and foreign affairs. This work is the product of the insights on the impacts of the oil industry in energy policy making, and the repercussions this activity has on foreign policy.

Promoting economic diversity is important for states reliant on natural resources as the major source of economic development. Many of these states suffer from the Dutch disease leading to negative effects, which hinders economic diversification. One of the ways to reduce dependency on national resources is to encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows, which aids diversification by the transfer of technology, the creation of new employment opportunities, and the adoption of modern management practices. The Gulf Council Cooperation (GCC) countries recognised the necessity and benefits of FDI as an aid to economic diversification; it seems, however, that Kuwait is lagging behind in this endeavour. The government of Kuwait has engaged in a series of policy measures to induce Multinational Companies (MNCs) to invest in Kuwait, but the results, thus far, have been disappointing. The formal and informal institutions interact in a variety of ways. However, ineffective formal rules can create different outcomes; particularly, in the presence of strong informal institutions. In such a case, formal rules and procedures are not enforced systematically, that is, enabling actors who are involved in the policy process to ignore or violate them, which subsequently results in a failure to attract inward FDI to a host country. Thus, this study investigates the reasons behind this failure by examining the role of formal and informal institutions on FDI policy and on decisions on whether to grant FDI licences by means of using a New Institutional Economics (NIE) approach. The conceptual framework is used as a guide for an inquiry into the subject of study by constructing a category of intellectual scaffolding, which would provide a coherent structure (Schlager, 2007). The conceptual framework in this study systematically organises the investigation into how a MNC examines a potential investment location by dividing the host country assessments into four distinct ¿stages¿. When systematically conducted, the respective approach is grounded in the existing literature, which provides theories regarding the behaviour of MNCs in relation to their decision-making processes for considering locations for their FDI projects. The research questions derived from the conceptual framework are answered using a mixed methods research approach that uses three sets of data survey, semi-structured interviews, and secondary data. Firstly, the findings show that almost that all MNCs in the Gulf region have a limited awareness regarding investment opportunities in Kuwait, FDI laws and regulations. Secondly, the findings reveal a number of attractive and unattractive locations, and institutional factors of Kuwait. Finally, it is discovered that the high rejection rate of FDI applications is linked to unsuccessful policy implementation, which is a result of interaction of both formal and informal institutions in Kuwait. Subsequently, the results are utilised to make a number of recommendations for government policy makers, administrators, and for MNCs regarding how to improve FDI inflows into Kuwait. The results are also used to contribute towards the international business literature concerning the institution based view of FDI, and for government policy connected to attracting FDI. / Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC)

Global Value Chains (GVCs) emerged in the last decades and changed the landscape of the international organisation of production. Thanks to the reduction of transport costs and to the development of new technologies the production process increasingly fragmented into single phases carried out by different firms, also located in different countries. This led to the birth of a dense international network of production with multiple commercial and financial linkages between firms and countries. Such a complex architecture offers remarkable advantages, such as reduced procurement costs and high degrees of local/regional specialization, but also exposes to relevant risks and sources of instability, especially in the presence of unexpected shocks. For this reason, the international production network and GVCs emerged as an important topic in the international economic literature. In this globalization process, developed countries have so far had a central role: they have the highest shares of GVCs participation, extract the largest part of value added, and are positioned in the most profitable segments of the chains. However, GVCs may offer remarkable opportunities also for developing countries (Taglioni and Winkler 2016; World Bank 2019, 2020). This project focuses on the role that GVCs may have in the development process of North Africa. This area is trying to emerge from the group of middle income countries and enter a stable development path. However, the financial crisis of 2008 and the series of Arab Spring revolutions have undermined the progresses achieved over the past decades. In this scenario, the COVID-19 pandemic poses further serious concerns. Addressing economic development for the whole area is complex. Despite having suffered common shocks as well as sharing many demographic, cultural and social characteristics, the economic structure of these countries is different. Algeria and Libya are highly dependent on revenues from raw materials such as oil and natural gas; Morocco and Tunisia have developed over the years an advanced manufacturing fabric thanks also to the entry of foreign multinationals into domestic economy; finally, Egypt has an economic structure where traditional sectors, such as shipbuilding and agriculture, coexist along with advanced ones such as ICT. In light also of this diversity, my research is structured as a series of self-contained chapters focused on the analysis of specific issues concerning the role of GVCs on development. In particular, in the first chapter I address the impact of GVCs participation on firm productivity. The issue has been widely discussed in the literature: while first studies pointed out the existence of just a self-selection mechanism into international markets according to productivity, evidence came out about a learning by participating effect. The chapter enriches this literature by investigating Egyptian firms’ performances in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolution. I find a positive and significant impact of GVCs participation on firm productivity, especially for domestic firms. In the second chapter, I investigate the relationship between firm GVCs participation and FDI activity using French administrative data. Relying on a very recent strand of literature, I hypothesise and prove that the direction of FDI follows and is caused by firm pattern of trade. Introducing governance indicators, I find changes in the general relationship according to countries' development. Moreover, a focus on NA reveals the peculiarity of this area. Finally, in the last chapter, I link the literature on GVCs with the Economic Complexity (EC) approach (Hidalgo et al., 2007; Hidalgo and Hausmann, 2009). The latter provides new tools and metrics to measure countries economic performances and offers interesting insights to study economic development. I link these strands of literature by applying the Product Space and other EC metrics to the study of GVCs. I also provide a new index to measure countries GVCs participation coherent with the EC approach. These contributions are then applied to the case study of NA countries. All in all, the research proves the importance of internationalisation for economic development. Integrating into GVCs, firms may increase their performances, and therefore countries improve their position and widen their linkages into the international production network.

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