Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2006. / The aim of this study was to investigate reasons/factors affecting the decline in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Botswana. It has been observed that there are many factors that help explain why the inflow of (FDI) is skewed towards developed nations. Principal amongst them is the population factor, that is, bigger markets and the level of technology. In the case of developing countries in general and Botswana in particular it was found out that FDI was attracted by the prospects of making massive profits. Therefore multinational companies invest mostly in developing countries which are endowed with natural resources such as ()iI, diamonds, gold and platinum. Although Botswana is endowed with diamonds and other natural resources, it has not been attracting the much needed FDI. Reasons advanced for its failure to attract good FDI include among others, small population, the bureaucratic civil service, lack of good infrastructure and lack of well trained human resources in the fields of science, engineering and financial services.

The opening up process of the central and eastern European (CEE) countries marked new beginnings in terms of greater integration of trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) with Western Europe. Adopting a two-stage out-of-sample gravity equation approach to predicting East West trade patterns, a panel data set of bilateral exports from twelve EU countries to twenty OECD partner countries is estimated over the 1992-2003 period to examine how integrated the CEE countries are with the West European countries. In general, countries which are initially less well-integrated with the EU have strongest trade potential: among the EU accession countries, the potential candidate countries look set to benefit most whereas the mixed trade ratios among the EU associated countries reflect very diverse economic structures. Using a similar approach to project East West FDI patterns, the potential to actual ratios of FDI stocks indicate a very uneven distribution of FDI among the eleven CEE countries. The FDI stock ratios accord with patterns of regional specialisation for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland and suggest greatest FDI potential lies with the two latest accession countries. As the West European countries represents the CEE countries main trading partners and their main sources of FDI, the nature of the trade-direct investment relation among the group of EU OECD countries is of potential importance to the CEE countries. Merging the determinants for both trade and FDI into one model and estimating the merged model as a trade equation and as an FDI equation, the EU OECD patterns of FDI are characterised by both horizontal FDI (HFDI) and vertical FDI (VFDI). The dual role of HFDI and VFDI is supported when the general model of trade and FDI determinants is estimated using an instrumental variables method and when the additional price variables of FDI and trade are interpreted as cross-price elasticity effects. In a competitive world, attracting more FDI to the CEE countries may not only mean catering to the traditional MNE motives, but can also depend on transition-related factors and host country policies. Using a panel data set of bilateral FDI flows from twelve EU countries to eleven CEE countries, the traditional determinants of direct investment along with the liberalisation process and infrastructure endowments are found to significantly affect FDI over the 1994-2003 period.

<p>This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investments, FDI, on economic growth in developing countries. This is done by the presentation of a theoretical framework, in which technological transfer and the learning of new technologies is considered to be the engine of growth along with a critical examination of a number of empirical studies on the subject. I will later on perform a discussion of the underlying conditions for FDI to work efficiently along with the implications for Sub-Saharan Africa regarding FDI inflows. The implications are studied within a framework that considers human capital as an important channel through which the potential benefits arising from FDI may be realized.</p>

<p>Explore factors that influence investors interested in investing in the electronic components sector in Thailand, with a focus on the consequences of Thailand‟s membership in the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement.</p>

- / Inspired by Douglass North’s work on the role of institutions in economic structure and change and in particular the role of state institutions, this thesis attempts to explore the process of economic transformation through analyzing state-business community relations in the city of Kunshan, Jiangsu, China. The author uses primary data from Kunshan to demonstrate how the open-door policy of China has led to changes in the institutional environment parallel to the economic transformation. Kunshan’s institutional development is analyzed in terms of two factors. First is ‘autonomy’ as in the ability and capacity of the local state to define and pursue its own development strategy. Second is ‘embeddedness’ as in the local state developing a regular relationship with economic elites that share its goals of economic transformation. These two are seen as complementary necessities for economic transformation. This thesis shows how the local state in Kunshan has strengthened both its capacity and integrity to pursue economic transformation and the actual pursuit of it through closer and more institutionalized relations with the business community.

An important process of economic reform in China has been to promote the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI). After more than thirty years of economic reform, China has become one of the most important destinations for cross-border direct investment. Since Taiwan has become one of the major source countries of FDI in China, Taiwanese investment has experienced changes in spatial patterns and industrial composition since the 1990s. As a result of active government promotion through various policy measures, FDI in China has grown rapidly since 1978, especially in the 1990s. Taiwanese authorities released the investment strategy, “Be patient, No hurry”in 2001, and since then China has become the biggest target of Taiwanese investment outside of Taiwan; money from Taiwan forms a significant portion of foreign capital in China. Due to coastal and other geographical advantages of the three major economic regions possessing good investment environments (that is, the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Bohai Bay economic region), the landscape of Taiwanese direct investment (TDI) in recent years has been moving Northward and Westward significantly. Initially, the Taiwanese investment in labor-intensive industries mainly concentrated in southern China, including Guangdong and Fujian, because of the cheap labor and geographic proximity. Since the mid-1990s, the industries of Yangtze Rive Delta region has become a new investment hotspot for Taiwanese enterprises while their industrial nature is changing to be more technology-intensive and domestic market-oriented.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between trade and FDI in the SADC. While FDI is seen as a stimulus for growth and development, Africa is lagging behind other regions in attracting FDI. Whilst a number of reasons have been explored in the literature, the potential link between trade and FDI has not been explored in the African context. This may be potentially important, since African governments have been engaging in trade liberalisation and trade promotion over the past two decades. In this thesis, gravity modelling is used to investigate the trade-FDI relationship. Two single equation regression models are used in a preliminary investigation to evaluate aggregate trade and FDI. The third model consists of six panel regressions that evaluate the different relationships between the individual SADC countries and their individual major trading partners. A causality test is also carried out to confirm the relevance of trade as a determinant of FDI in the SADC. Overall results indicate that, in the specific case of the SADC, SADC exports significantly cause FDI. Distance from home countries and political instability are the most significant negative forces that affect FDI inflows. Home country exports deliver mixed results and these results suggest that the United States and the United Kingdom have a different FDI-trade relationship with the SADC than continental Europe, whereas Japan's exports prove insignificant. The policy implications are that the SADC will need to focus on attracting investment from countries that provide for complementary FDI and trade as this is optimal for poverty alleviation and job creation. Further research should focus on these policy areas and take into account the relevance of trade as a determinant of FDI. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of various channels of technology spillovers on local innovative capacity at national and firm level. At national level, the thesis investigates the drivers of Malaysia‟s innovative capacity and the effect of international external sources on innovative capacity. At firm level, this thesis examines the impact of FDI on the innovation progress and studies whether multinational corporations (MNCs) can act as catalysts to stimulate local firms‟ innovation activities in Malaysia. Via a case study analysis at firm level, this thesis focuses on knowledge transfer through backward linkages established between MNCs and their local suppliers. Time series data analysis is conducted to provide empirical evidence of the effect of FDI spillovers on Malaysia‟s innovative capacity at national level. Additionally, a case-study approach is adopted to investigate the impact of vertical FDI spillovers on the innovation performance of local Malaysian firms. The key findings of the study reveal that export-related spillovers are positively associated with Malaysia‟s innovative capacity, whereas importrelated spillovers play a minor role in local innovation. The findings also indicate that there is no significant correlation between economic development and local innovation, which suggests that strong economic growth is not a necessary condition in order for Malaysia to enhance its local innovative capacity. The results suggest that there is strong evidence of the importance of foreign innovation activities to local innovative capacity at national level. In contrast, knowledge spillovers measured by FDI inflows have no significant impact on local innovative capacity. The results showed that FDI might be constrained by the fact that spillovers are more likely to take place through vertical relationships than horizontal relationships. At firm level, the study suggests that knowledge and technology can be diffused through high-quality and standard requirements imposed by MNCs, the assessment and feedback and training programmes offered by MNCs to local suppliers, as well as the production process itself. These results extend ii the existing literature on national innovative capacity and validate earlier theoretical and empirical research on vertical spillovers. The findings from the thesis also have important policy and managerial implications with regard to the impact of FDI on host developing countries.

The global emphasis on human rights has generated a surge of studies into what causes regimes to abuse the basic rights of their citizens. Causes of abuse can be internal or external in nature, based on economics, politics or cultures. This study examines the effects of foreign aid and foreign direct investment on three types of human rights: personal integrity, civil and political, and subsistence. I perform ordinary least squares regression analyses with panel-corrected standard errors on a pooled cross-sectional time series design incorporating 127 countries from 1976 to 1996. While my results are not significant, it is important to observe that there is a tendency toward negative relationships for the majority of the analyses.

<p>Ostensibly, BITs are the ideal international treaty. First, until just recently, they almost uniformly came with explicit dispute resolution mechanisms through which countries could face real costs for violation (Montt 2009). Second, the signing, ratification, and violation of them are easily accessible public knowledge. Thus countries presumably would face reputational costs for violating these agreements. Yet, these compliance devices have not dissuaded states from violating these agreements. Even more interestingly, in recent years, both developed and developing countries have moved towards modifying the investor-friendly provisions of these agreements. These deviations from the expectations of the credible commitment argument raise important questions about the field's assumptions regarding the ability of international treaties with commitment devices to effectively constrain state behavior.</p> / Dissertation