In this paper a comparative exploration of the potential for foreign investment and real inflow to Russia and Ukraine are examined. The analysis showed that primarily both countries enjoyed significant comparative advantages in attracting foreign capital. Since the foundation of independent states in 1992 attractiveness began to diverge dramatically. This difference is clearly explained by the determination of the Russian government to reform the economy earlier than the Ukrainian government. The transition to a market economy is closely connected with the development of a favorable investment climate in both countries. It includes the foundation of a stable system of property rights and a conducive legal environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether foreign direct investment, FDI, has any impact on economic growth in Mexico. In order to find a possible connection I use a multiple regression analysis with GDP per capita as dependent variable. Furthermore, I critically examine previous studies of FDI and its effect on GDP per capita in Mexico as well as other studies with several developed and developing countries. The difference between this paper and previous studies is that the data is more up-to-date here. My results, like most of the previous studies, do not indicate on any statistical significance that FDI has a positive effect on economic growth. FDI do however seem to produce positive spillover effects on the domestic economy, mainly through knowledge and technological spillovers.

Crude oil can attract a lot of investments and development into a country but when not managed well can as well cause a lot of destruction and conflict. Like fire, crude oil is a good servant but can be a bad master too depending on how it is handled. Using Dunning‟s eclectic paradigm, a positive relationship between foreign direct investment and locational attraction was established. Of the two components within the locational attraction, natural resource attracts more foreign direct investment than market size in the case of Africa. It was established through our case study of Angola that oil attracts foreign direct investment because oil is a location attraction which attracts foreign firms. These investments on the other hand contribute to the productive capacity of the receiving country thus stimulating economic development. However, the availability of natural resources (oil) and its ability to attract foreign investment does not guarantee economic development. The establishment of appropriate institutions, mechanisms and policies would ensure efficient use of oil revenue for sustained economic growth. We identified vital policy options (the Fund mechanism and spending rule) available to Ghana , with inference from Norway, which could help evade the „Dutch Disease‟. Oil production could thus attract more foreign direct investment and contribute to the economic development of Ghana only on condition that appropriate oil revenue management policies are implemented.

Not long ago, Brazil was a country with an unstable economic system; inflation and interest rates were high and the political system was corrupt and complex. Still Brazil has for a long time been a successful market for Swedish companies. In São Paulo, the financial center of Brazil, a “little Sweden” has emerged which is considered to be the largest center for Swedish industry outside of Sweden. The purpose of this thesis is to examine why a ‘little Sweden’ has emerged in Brazil as well as examining what importance different economical factors have had for Swedish foreign direct investments in Brazil. Theories regarding foreign direct investments as well as other business theories have been used in the research. To get a deep understanding of the subject, four interviews have been made with organizations involved in helping Swedish companies in Brazil. The research has shown that the most important factors in the creation of the ‘little Sweden’ has been; access to production factors such as natural resources, the competitiveness of the home market together with the size of Brazil’s market, the financial capacity of the Swedish companies, the fact that Swedish companies could offer products and services that suited the demands of Brazil, as well as the fact that the Swedish entrepreneurs had a long term thinking and a great optimistic visions for the future.

Mainland China since its economic reform has become one of the countries that attract most foreign investment, which brought significant influence on China¡¦s economic development. However, the foreign investment has a highly unbalanced distribution within China, with the coastal area absorbing more than eighty per cent of the total amount. The uneven distribution exacerbated the development disparity among different regions. In an effort to address the regional development gap and ameliorate inland economic development, central government in China put forward the Western Development Program in 2000. This paper seeks to analyze the impacts foreign investment brought to west China, by examining China¡¦s foreign investment policy since its economic reform, and its Western Development Program since 2000, respectively. The research concludes that as economic reform began in China¡¦s eastern area, the region benefited from government¡¦s favorable foreign investment policy and advanced its economic development. Western area, on the contrary, demonstrates otherwise. The Western¡¦s Development Program failed to attract substantial foreign investment into inland China, and the preferential policies for foreign investment had only very limited success. This is due to a range of factors taken into consideration by foreign investors when contemplating operating in the western area, including the infrastructure and the investment environment in west China. As such, government¡¦s preferential policies remain ineffective and the distribution of foreign investment continues to be highly asymmetrical.

This thesis investigates the determinants of Swedish foreign direct investments to 24 European countries during the period 1998 to 2008 with 2000 and 2008 as sample years. The thesis emphasizes five factors that affect the Swedish FDI flows to these countries, which are grouped into OECD countries and CEE countries (Central and Eastern European Countries). The explanatory variables studied are economic growth, property rights, labor cost and two dummy variables with one targeting whether the country is culturally affiliated with Sweden and the other is dealing with whether that country is an OECD country or not. We use multiple regressions to find out to what extent each of these variables can explain the variance of FDI during the years 2000 and 2008. The coefficient estimates show the expected sign in the relationship between FDI and the various explanatory variables, with the exception of labor cost but only OECD membership shows a significant relationship to FDI (and only when using 2000 data).

Malaysia is one of the developing countries in the world that is on the verge to become de-veloped (Internationella Programkontoret, 2003). In 2004, Malaysia had a growth rate around 7% (United Nation Statistic Division, 2005) and it is implied that the Malaysian market is continuously growing. One factor that can increase the growth rate in Malaysia is foreign direct investments (FDI), which is, according to Chino (2004), one factor of sus-tainable growth. It has been noticed that the world is getting smaller and more companies are looking for opportunities outside the country boarders and in this situation Malaysia is an attractive alternative for establishment. The purpose of this study is to investigate and deepen the understanding of cultural factors affecting the establishing process for Swedish companies in Malaysia, and through that cre-ate an awareness that can simplify the establishing process. To answer the purpose of this study, a qualitative research has been used. Interviews with Swedish companies newly established in Malaysia have been performed. The respondents have been asked about the establishing process in Malaysia and the Malaysian culture. Ad-ditional interviews with the Swedish Trade Council and the Swedish Embassy have also been performed. The interview guides have been based on theories about FDI, the estab-lishment process and culture. Hollensen’s market entry strategies, Hollensen’s network model and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the main theories used throughout this study. The authors have found through this study that the different ethnic groups in Malaysia are highly influential on the business environment and that foreign companies establishing in Malaysia have to be aware of this situation. The multicultural society is an advantage for Malaysia, through the locals’ ability to adapt to different cultures and the many different languages in the country. However, foreigners moving to Malaysia need to be aware of the special treatment of the Malays and how that affects the business environment. Two main problems have been found by the authors; the Malaysian bureaucracy and the locals unwill-ingness to let foreigners into their networks. This can be problematic for foreign compa-nies, but can be handled through the help of governmental functions such as MIDA or MSC, or through a company secretary or auditor. Through this visualization of the cultural factors that affect the establishing process of Swedish companies in Malaysia, the authors hope to minimize the risk of them running into the same problems and obstacles.

Although there is a considerable evidence on the link between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth in developing countries, the causal relationship of these two variables still remains an important question. This study attempts to examine the possible causal relationship between FDI and economic growth in Turkey, during the period 1992 (Quarter 2) – 2006 (Quarter 3). We employed the Johansen Cointegration and Granger Causality tests for detecting the long run or short run causality. Our results showed that there is no long run relationship between the variables, which led us to search the causality in the short run. However we couldn’t find any evidence for a causality running from FDI to economic growth or economic growth to FDI in Turkey.

Economic integration and mobility of capital have set the ground for a significant competition over resources. Tax competition for internationally mobile tax bases such as foreign direct investments has become an important matter of study. Nevertheless, literature has focused on a regional or geographical neighboring condition competition through taxes. This dissertation aims to test whether tax competition for foreign direct investment has changed its regional characteristic towards a global or world-wide competition. Global or world-wide tax competition can be thought of as uncooperative tax policy reactions between governments of different countries of the world not necessarily near each other geographically, but in similar economic conditions and with the purpose to influence the allocation of mobile tax bases world-wide. For the purpose of this study, export oriented foreign capital investment was referred to as the internationally mobile tax base. A theoretical model was constructed allowing for three countries, geographical distance, transportation costs, labor and technology skills, as well as four types of individuals: workers, capitalists, and two types of entrepreneurs. Optimal corporate statutory and average effective tax rates were obtained in order to serve as reaction functions between governments and evaluate the presence of tax competition. A spatial econometric model was used to estimate the empirical approximation of the theoretical model. Four types of weight matrixes were computed: homogeneous weights, similar economic conditions, similar transportation costs from the FDI host country to the FDI home country, and neighboring conditions of FDI host countries. The sample covered 53 countries from different areas of the world from 1984 to 2002. Regarding the data, several variables were constructed, among those: the corporate average effective tax rate. The statutory corporate tax rate was discarded since it misses important factors for capital investment such as tax holidays and depreciation schedules. The principal result suggests that countries from the sample appear to behave in a tax competitive way not only in geographical neighboring terms but also in a global or world-wide approach. In fact, countries appear to compete in a stronger way in global or world-wide terms than when assuming a regional or neighboring condition.

The impact of conflict and violence on foreign direct investment (FDI) is not a topic that has been done justice by the literature, and what few studies exist have contradictory results. This paper studies the impact that transnational terrorism has on FDI inflows by economic sector, in developed countries. Results indicate a statistically significant negative correlation between terrorist events and total FDI inflows. Amongst a list of 12 broad industrial sectors, FDI inflows for manufacturing, trade and repair, and construction were found to have a statistically significant negative correlation with terrorist events.