This Master Thesis examines cooperation between Russia and the Czech Republic in the spheres of foreign trade and investment relations. The analyzed period is primarily over the last decade with the concentration on the current trends. The analysis is carried out through evaluation of present level of trade volumes and investment flows between countries, search of obstacles and incentives for mutual cooperation in these areas, countries' governmental and other sources of support, etc. The Thesis considers trade and investment perspectives for relation development and mutual cooperation between Russia and the Czech Republic as well. One of the study's purposes was to provide recommendations for improvement of the business environment in Russia and making its national economy attractive for foreign capital. The study shows that, even though the share of the Czech Republic in the total trade volume between the EU and other non-EU member states makes up about 1%, the trade volumes in relations between this country and Russia remain significant. The largest category of Czech exports to Russia are machines and means of transport; Russian exports to the Czech Republic are energetic commodities, raw materials and mineral oil. As a matter of fact Russia's economic growth in later years has largely been driven by its energy exports. The country's dependency on energy sector demands structural changes in the national economy, modernization is critical for its long-term economic growth. The analysis emphasizes that Russia should adopt experience of the Czech Republic, as a highly industrialized country, use Czech innovative technologies and equipment, enter into joint projects with the Czech Republic, and so on in order to ensure future growth in today's competitive world. This is necessary especially in the light of the fact that Russia close to gaining membership to WTO, which can potentially facilitate trade and investment flows between the country and the EU, including the Czech Republic.

In the first chapter, the term of transnational corporation has been defined, further the history of their development has been pursued, the classification of them according to different aspects and their strategies as well. In the second chapter, I deal with the emplacement of transnational corporations in the contemporary world economy; foreign direct investments and the largest transnational corporations has been pursued in this part as well. The last chapter is created by case study of transnational corporation called Regus.

The aim of the study is to examine the effects of FDI on the four countries - Czech republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. There is a detailed description of a global flows of FDI, concentrating on specific important events that influenced the flows, also regarding the particular region of a world economy. In the main part the study examines every country of the Visegrad Group separately - its macroeconomic development, FDI flows and main events that had a major influence on the flows into each country. At the end there is also a small quantitative analysis trying to prove a relationship between FDI stock in each country and its rate of inflation, unemployment rate, GDP growth and a current account deficit of a ballance of payments.

This dissertation focuses on the development of foreign direct investment realized by Czech companies during the last two decades. The Czech Republic became one of the targets of foreign investors during its economic transformation while inward investments have all this time exceeded outward investments. This is probably the reason why Czech outward foreign direct investments do not attract such attention in economic research as inward investments. This dissertation tries to extend findings on the influences on the development of Czech outward foreign direct investments, describes who the main Czech investors abroad are and examines the microeconomic and macroeconomic impacts of foreign direct investments. Last but not least, application of the Investment Development Path theoretical concept was used in order to describe Czech outward foreign direct investment in the globalising world economy.

This diploma thesis focuses on foreign direct investment (FDI) coming to different regions of the Czech Republic. This investment play a crucial role in socioeconomic development of the country and therefore it is an important part of regional development policies. Thesis concentrates on French and Belgian investors and its aim is to determine the key factors that influence the localization of FDI coming from France and Belgium to regional economies of the Czech Republic. In the first chapter theoretical data concerning this topic is introduced, followed by closer description of development of FDI in the Czech Republic in general. At this point the investment coming from France and Belgium that is supported by the agency CzechInvest is stressed. The final part is dedicated to different regions of the country. Based on analytic, cartographic and statistical methods, localization factors with a great influence on French and Belgian investors when choosing the area to invest in are determined.

This study develops a panel data analysis over 27 transition and post transition economies for the period 2003-2010. Its intent is to investigate empirically the true effect of seven variables into foreign flows and takes later on the advantage of observed findings to conduct a comparative analysis between Kosovo and regional countries such: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. As the breakdown period (2008-2010) was included in the data set used to modelling the behaviour of FDI, both Chow test and the time dummies technique suggest the presence of structural break. Ultimately, empirical results show that FDI is positively related with one year lagged effect of real GDP growth, trade openness, labour force, low level of wages proxied by remittances, real interest rate and the low level of corruption. Besides, the corporate income tax is found to be significant and inversely related with foreign flows. The comparative analysis referring the growth rate of real GDP shows that Kosovo has the most stable macroeconomic environment in the region, but still it is continuously confronted by the high deficit of trade balance and high rate of unemployment. Appart, the key obstacle that has abolished efforts for foreign investment attraction is found to be the trade blockade of...

Nota-se que, entre os inícios das décadas de 1990 e 2000, destacando-se, de forma mais evidente o meio dos anos 1990, ocorreu um expressivo fluxo de inversões espanholas em direção à América Latina. Esse montante chegou a representar, em alguns anos, mais de 30% do total de investimento externo recebido pelos países latino-americanos. Apesar desse expressivo aporte de inversões das empresas espanholas na América Latina, não se encontra um significativo número de trabalhos sobre esse tema, ao passo que, ao se buscar análises que utilizem a metodologia estatística, esse número se reduz consideravelmente. Com efeito, a tese aqui apresentada busca identificar os componentes macroeconômicos determinantes do movimento recente de internacionalização produtiva da economia espanhola na América Latina, empregando, basicamente, uma metodologia econométrica de dados em painel, caracterizando os push-pull factors dessa dinâmica. Para uma melhor compreensão da estrutura do modelo econométrico utilizado e, também, das respostas estatísticas alcançadas neste trabalho, faz-se primeiramente uma revisão nos conceitos teóricos das principais escolas econômicas relacionadas aos determinantes dos gastos com investimento em geral. Em seguida, apresentam-se as principais referências teóricas que tratam exclusivamente do investimento estrangeiro direto (IED). Também abordam-se a caracterização da metodologia de dados em painel, com seus respectivos estimadores, e os testes de especificação estatística utilizados. Por fim, já delimitadas as investigações teóricas e a metodologia usada neste trabalho, expõem-se os resultados encontrados. Com efeito, chegou-se a resultados estatísticos suportados por outros trabalhos que analisaram o mesmo tema, porém, com uma abordagem metodológica diversa. Ou seja, o IED espanhol direcionado à América Latina teve como push factors, basicamente, o nível de atividade da economia espanhola, com uma relação positiva, e a absorção interna desse país, com uma relação negativa. A primeira variável possibilita uma significativa acumulação interna às empresas da Espanha. Já o segundo componente aponta para a expectativa de não crescimento da demanda interna desse país ibérico. Os pull factors que, especificados a partir de uma relação positiva com o IED espanhol, se tornaram estatisticamente significativos foram: o tamanho de mercado, a absorção interna, a produtividade, uma variável binária que representa as privatizações, a taxa de câmbio nominal da moeda local contra o Euro e o grau de abertura. Assim, conclui-se que o processo de privatizações e a desvalorização da moeda local frente ao Euro na América Latina possibilitaram um movimento de internacionalização produtiva de alguns subsetores da Espanha que visavam a um aumento de escala, propiciando enfrentar a concorrência de empresas instaladas no mercado comum europeu. / An expressive inflow of investments from Spain towards Latin America occurred between the beginning of 1990’s and 2000’s, especially in the middle of 1990’s. This sum has come to represented in some years more than 30% of total foreign investment received by Latin-American countries. Despite this significant investments inflow from Spanish companies in Latin America, there is not an expressive number of papers related to the subject. Besides, works using statistical methodology are even rarer. The hypothesis encompassed at the present work aims at identifying the macroeconomic determinants to a recent movement of productive internationalization of Spanish economy in Latin America. For this purpose, a panel data econometric methodology has been used, revealing the pushpull factors of this dynamics. For a better understanding of both econometric model structure and reached statistical responses, first it was conducted a revision of theoretical concepts of the main economic schools regarding determinants to investment expenditures in general. Next, it is presented the major theoretical references that deal exclusively with foreign direct investment (FDI). The characterization of panel data methodology, with its respective estimators and statistical specification tests, is also covered. Finally, after having narrowed down theoretical investigation and the methodology applied in this study, the results achieved are discussed. In effect, reached statistical results are in conformity with those supported by other works that had the same issue under consideration, but used different methodological approaches. Hence, the push factors to Spanish FDI directed to Latin America were basically the level of economic activity in Spain, as a positive relation, and absorption rate in this country, as a negative relation. The first variable enabled a significant capital accumulation to Spanish companies. On the other hand, the second component points to the expectation of non-growth of this country’s domestic demand. The pull factors that have become statistically significant were market size, absorption rate, productivity, trade openness, a binary variable that represented privatizations, and nominal exchange rate of local currency against Euro, all of them with a positive relation to the Spanish FDI. Thus, it’s possible to conclude that process of privatizations and devaluation of Latin-American local currencies against Euro allowed a movement of productive internationalization of some subsectors in Spain, which aimed to increase their scale gains in order to face competition from companies installed in European market.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2017-10-09T19:30:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MARINA RUBIA MENDONCA LOBO.pdf: 608649 bytes, checksum: a501da4fc2dff1a5ca42bdcb41ba14d0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-09T19:30:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MARINA RUBIA MENDONCA LOBO.pdf: 608649 bytes, checksum: a501da4fc2dff1a5ca42bdcb41ba14d0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-08-01 / This study examined the foreign direct investment in Africa, focusing on the production of an evaluating tool for business opportunities in African markets, specifically in Ghana, a country situated in the western portion of the Black Continent. Aiming to establish an objective reading instrument for the rational selection of Ghana as a prospecting field, the research showed, generally, variables apt to set the country as a fecund market, such as the cultural context; natural and human resources, infrastructure and market size; economic performance and governance, taxation and incentives, operating costs, regulatory frameworks for investment, among others, comprised in four chapters, verified through electronic and bibliographic sources. The current situation seems to lead us to a favourable forecast to capital investments in the region, since Ghana has shaped its legal system so as to make it promising for investors, facilitating access to international capital into local markets by offering general benefits and incentives which resulted in improvement of the business environment / O presente trabalho analisou o investimento estrangeiro direto na África, concentrando-se na produção de uma ferramenta de avaliação de oportunidades de negócios nos mercados africanos, mais especificamente em Gana, país situado na porção ocidental do Continente Negro. Visando estabelecer um instrumento de leitura objetivo para a seleção racional de Gana como campo de prospecção, a pesquisa apontou, genericamente, variáveis aptas a estabelecer o país como mercado fecundo, a exemplo do contexto cultural; recursos naturais e humanos; infraestrutura e dimensão de mercado; desempenho econômico e governança; tributação e incentivos; custos operacionais; quadros regulatórios de investimentos, entre outros, acostados em quatro capítulos, verificados através de fontes bibliográficas e eletrônicas. O quadro atual parece nos levar a previsões favoráveis às aplicações de capital na região, uma vez que Gana moldou seu ordenamento jurídico de forma a torná-lo auspicioso para investidores, facilitando o acesso de capital internacional aos mercados locais, através de benefícios e incentivos gerais, o que culminou na melhoria do ambiente empresarial.

Economia / Master in Economics / The relevance of foreign direct investment (FDI) (UNCTAD, 2007) is recognised by a vast body of literature. However, until recently most studies and policy-making initiatives were focused on the mere magnitude of FDI inflows (i.e. the quantity), neglecting the quality of these investments. Recent literature on subsidiaries roles and evolution is shedding light on the asymmetric quality of multinationals (MNEs) operations, hence helping to understand their differentiated impact on host economies. This dissertation contributes to this literature by investigating empirically the quality of foreign subsidiaries activities located in Ireland and Portugal. Using data from a purposely designed questionnaire survey, the following questions will be analysed. First, which characteristics of multinational subsidiaries are conducive to innovation? This study will consider the impact of age, education and R&D intensities, among other characteristics, on innovation. This question will be analysed using a probit model. Second, do foreign subsidiaries based in Ireland and Portugal differ in a systematic way with regard to these characteristics and with regard to the motivations that led to their establishment? This question will be studied using nonparametric methods. The empirical results (first application) corroborate the hypotheses that age, education and R&D intensities of the subsidiary impact positively on innovation. The results are consistent with previous studies that emphasise the time dependent aspect of multinational subsidiaries evolution (Young, Hood and Peters, 1994; Birkinshaw and Hood, 1997, 1998) and those that highlight the importance of human capital (Bartel and Lichtenberg, 1987; Narula and Marin, 2003) and R&D activities (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989, 1990) for technology absorption and creation. It was also found (the second empirical application) that the asset-seeking motivation played a more important role in attracting investors to Ireland than to Portugal and that subsidiaries based in Ireland tend to display greater education and R&D intensities than those based in Portugal.

Thesis (M. Com. (Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2018 / Many developing countries are trying to make their business environment more attractive to foreign investors. They try this by relaxing rules regarding market entry and foreign ownership; improving infrastructure and making other efforts to enhance their chances of becoming a destination country for foreign direct investment (FDI). Among the characteristics of globalisation is the unrestricted capital flow and access to world market. Global FDI stocks have been on the increase and many more African countries are becoming more open to FDI, even though it still remains low. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to provide an analysis of the driving factors towards foreign direct investment in South Africa. The ARDL approach is used to investigate drivers of international investment decisions in South Africa using quarterly data from 2007Q1 to 2017Q1. The bounds cointegration method was chosen to analyse the long and the short run relationship amongst the variables of interest. In addition, the Granger Causality test was used to determine causal relationships between FDI and other variables. The study found that household income level had an effect in the stock of FDI. It also found that labour productivity increased the total output of goods and services and therefore impacted on the stock of FDI in the country. Public infrastructure investment and interest rates are also among the important factors that determine FDI inflow. Furthermore, the dummy variable has a significant negative effect and it shows that labour strikes and unrests affect FDI negatively. Although South Africa has implemented strategies to attract more FDI, recent political instability and labour disputes has left investor weary of the future of the economy therefore a refinement of some of these policies is needed if the country is to be successful in this regard. The county should also focus on developing and maintaining quality infrastructures in terms of, roads, telephones, internet access, water and electricity supply.