Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Sedan 1990-talet har antalet regionala handelsavtal ökat kraftigt och världshandeln präglas inte av den globala frihandel som WTO eftersträvar, utan snarare av handelssammanslutningar med en stor aktör i centrum. Genom den så kallade Barcelonaprocessen har EU, ett av de största naven i världshandeln, knutit bilaterala avtal med sina grannländer kring Medelhavet och på så sätt gett upphov till ett struktur som kallas hub-and-spoke, nav-ocheker. I denna uppsats utreds detta begrepp och de effekter som strukturen har på handel och flödet av utländska direktinvesteringar. Vi ser tecken på att dessa flöden har ökat för Marocko och Tunisien under de senaste åren och finner det troligt att effekterna blir ännu större i övriga Medelhavsländer

Since the end of World War II, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been leading the international financial capital flows and has tripled in 2000s over the decade earlier. With its positive effect on economic growth of host countries via spill-overs, it became a race among countries to attract multinational enterprises (MNEs) to invest in their countries. The introduction of European common currency theoretically helps reduce the transaction costs across borders with the reduction of exchange-rate uncertainties and associated costs of hedging, facilitation of international cost comparison. Moreover, mergers and acquisitions activities (M&As) account for 60-80% of FDI flows, and most MNEs engage in both export and setting up affiliates abroad, suggesting complementarity between trade and FDI. Thus reducing cross-border distance costs would encourage MNEs to increase its M&A activities abroad, resulting in more inward FDI flows in the eurozone, especially among member states. The gravity equation is used in this paper to estimate the euro effect from the dataset of inward FDI flows of 24 countries during 1993-2007 and the result confirms that common currency stimulates more intra-eurozone inward FDI flows by approximately 58%.

Kina har under de senaste 30 åren haft en ekonomisk tillväxt med närmare 10 procent per år. Men i takt med den ekonomiska utvecklingen har också inkomstskillnaderna mellan kust‐ och inlandsregionerna ökat. I den här uppsatsen har jag valt att studera skillnaderna i utländska direktinvesteringar, humankapitalsatsningar och infrastrukturinvesteringar mellan regionerna för att se om dessa faktorer kan förklara den ojämna inkomstfördelningen. Min slutsats är att det finns stora skillnader i investeringsnivåer, främst i FDI, mellan kust‐ och inlandsregionerna. Och att den kinesiska staten har haft stor påverkan på inkomstgapet, kanske kan den tises som den drivande kraften bakom de växande inkomstskillnaderna.

Jag har i denna uppsats undersökt hur inflödet av utländska direktinvesteringar (FDI) till Thailand har påverkats av instabiliteten i landet under tidsperioden 1980 till 2005. Som mått på instabilitet har jag framförallt använt mig utav kreditbetyg från Standard & Poor, men jag har även tittat på de större politiska händelser som inträffat. Jag har även, för att kunna dra slutsatser utifrån förändringar av kreditbetyg, undersökt det generella sambandet mellan FDI och kreditbetyg och där kommit fram till ett positivt signifikant resultat. I min analys har jag undersökt om variationer i inflödet av FDI till Thailand kan förklaras utifrån de mått jag har valt. Min slutsats blev att en större del av de nedgångar i inflödet av FDI som skett har inträffat i samband med händelser som ger signaler om ökad instabilitet, såsom sänkt kreditbetyg eller stadskupper.

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.

Trade openness, market size, transparency, ease of doing business, location advantagesand low levels of corruption and country risk are the main determinants that attractForeign Direct Investment into a host country. FDI inflows in México have increasedremarkably since 1994 when the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) cameinto effect. Using multiple regression analysis in order to measure the impact of FDI onGDP; the Empirical results showed that a one percent increase in FDI leads on average toan increase of 0.08 percent in GDP which clearly reflects a positive but neither animportant nor a substantial impact of FDI on economic growth in México as it would beexpected. Time series data analysis for the period 1980-2007 has been tested for UnitRoot by applying the Dickey-Fuller (DF) test. Each time series after the first differencebecomes stationary and therefore it might be a causal relationship among the variables.However, FDI will not have a real impact on the society unless there is an effective stockof Human Capital capable of learning and absorbing the know-how to work successfullywith the technology that Multinational Corporations bring into the host country with theirinvestment. The challenge for the Mexican Government is to create structural reformssuch as the deregulation of energy and oil sector for private investment that will lead toconstantly higher flows of FDI. In the medium term this will then be reflected in thesociety in terms of poverty reduction and development of its population.

With the expansion of the European Union there have been concerns over increasing competition for FDI attraction between member states. This study will examine to what extent, if to any extent at all, the admission of the Central and Eastern countries to the EU has raised completion for FDI in Spain. Spain and the CEECs will be compared in terms of advantages in FDI attraction. Ultimately, evidence and analysis will suggest that given current trend, there is no serious threat to diverting foreign assets from Spain to the CEECs.

La demanda cumple un papel dicotómico sobre el crecimiento. Por un lado desplaza el ahorro y así restringe la capacidad de la economía para financiar la inversión, mientras que por el otro, estimula la inversión gracias a que conforma el mercado que finalmente dará salida a la producción. Así, el efecto estimulante del consumo compite con la restricción financiera. Esta es una disyuntiva clásica en economía, sobre la cual la teoría del crecimiento neoclásica parece decantarse sin atenuantes a favor del enfoque que pone el énfasis en la restricción financiera. Se propone como alternativa, un modelo de crecimiento económico à la Ramsey que permite analizar los impactos derivados de incluir este papel dual del consumo, a la vez de que se desarrolla un modelo de crecimiento à la Solow que una vez parametrizado, permite explorar tres grandes hipótesis. La primera es el mecanismo de causalidad que bajo un modelo neoclásico tiene al ahorro como disparador del crecimiento a través de la inversión. Una parte significativa de la literatura encuentra que parece ser el crecimiento quien explica el ahorro (y la inversión) y no a la inversa. También se halla este resultado en un ejercicio econométrico de causalidad en el sentido de Granger aplicado a la economía argentina del último siglo. La segunda hipótesis es el papel de la inversión extranjera directa (IED) en el crecimiento, sobre el que la teoría neoclásica ha depositado grandes expectativas, destacando su contribución financiera y/o su rol como canal de transferencia de tecnologías. Sin embargo, los resultados distan de haber satisfecho estas expectativas. La evidencia tiene grandes dificultades para corroborar el efecto previsto y apenas se hallan trazos de un impacto, que con frecuencia se encuentra negativo. El impacto positivo de la IED sobre el crecimiento dista de ser un mecanismo automático. El efecto total de la IED sobre el crecimiento no se limita al aporte financiero inicial (efecto 'flujo'), sino que se dilata en el tiempo, sugiriendo que existe un efecto 'stock', que representa el impacto de los pagos en concepto de rentas de la inversión -utilidades y servicios de la deuda- por parte de las firmas extranjeras que al disminuir la demanda interna, desalientan la inversión y el crecimiento. La estimación elaborada para el caso de la economía Argentina señala que el efecto 'stock' es negativo, que la IED 'sustituye' la inversión nacional y que, en cambio, es el crecimiento económico quien atrae tanto la inversión doméstica como la IED. La tercera hipótesis es la de los rendimientos decrecientes del factor trabajo que desde Malthus predomina en el modelo de crecimiento neoclásico. La literatura examinada, que desdobla el efecto demográfico en un impacto positivo derivado del crecimiento de la población en edad de trabajar, y otro negativo derivado del crecimiento de la población inactiva, parece contradecir esta hipótesis. En un ejercicio econométrico de datos en panel aplicado al caso de la UE, se alcanza el resultado de que una vez desdoblados estos dos efectos, el crecimiento demográfico, incluido el generado por la inmigración, puede estimular el crecimiento económico, en especial a mediano plazo. Estos resultados son compatibles con el modelo propuesto de crecimiento endógeno basado en la demanda, que además de incluir un mecanismo de transmisión que tiene al crecimiento como disparador del ahorro, también propone que el exceso de demanda, al estimular la formación de capital y el cambio técnico, está determinado en forma positiva por el crecimiento del empleo, y negativamente, por las filtraciones derivadas de la IED. / Demand plays a dichotomous role on growth. On the one hand displaces savings and thus restricts the ability of the economy to finance investment, while on the other hand, encourages investment through the increased market capacity to absorb production. The stimulating effect of consumption competes with the financial restraint. This is a classic dilemma in economics, on which neoclassical growth theory seems to stress exclusively on the financial restraint side.A model of economic growth à la Ramsey is proposed as an alternative to examine the effects of including this dual effect of consumption. It is also developed a model à la Solow, which once parameterized, allows the exam of these three major hypothesis: The first is the neoclassical mechanism of causation taking saving as a trigger for growth through investment. In this respect, the bulk of the literature finds that growth explains savings (and investment), and not vice versa. The same result is found in an empirical econometric exercise of causality in the sense of Granger carried out for the Argentine economy in the last century. The second hypothesis is the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in growth, for which neoclassical theory places high expectations, highlighting its financial contribution and its role as a channel for technology transfer. However, the results are far from satisfying these expectations. Empirical evidence finds it very difficult to corroborate this positive effects envisaged by theory. Often the impact is found to be negative. The review of the literature -and the empirical exercise carried out-, suggest that the positive impact of FDI on growth is far from automatic. The total impact of FDI can be splitted in its initial financial contribution ('flow' effect), and the 'stock' effect reflecting the impact of asset dividends, debt services between foreign firms and their home countries that trough reducing domestic demand, discourages investment and economic growth. For the case of the Argentinean economy, the econometric Granger causality evidence finds that the 'stock' effect is negative, that FDI 'replaces' domestic investment (rather than 'complements'), and that, instead, economic growth triggers both domestic investment and FDI. The third hypothesis is the idea of labor-diminishing returns that since Malthus prevails in neoclassical growth models. The literature reviewed, which splits the demographic impact into a positive one arising from labor force growth, and a negative one resulting from the non-labor force population growth, seems to contradict this hypothesis. In an panel data econometric exercise applied to the case of the EU, we found that once unfolded these two effects, population growth, including that generated by immigration, stimulates economic growth, particularly in the medium term. These results are consistent with the proposed demand-side model of endogenous growth, which includes a transmission mechanism that has economic growth as the trigger of savings, and also proposes that excess-demand, which stimulates capital formation and technical change, is determined positively by employment growth, and negatively by leaks from the economy arising from FDI stock.

This paper investigates the impact of inward FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) on international trade of China empirically on the country level by using panel data from 1984 to 2007. Two separate transformed models which are based on the gravity equation and refer to the econometric models of some previous studies, are used in this paper to estimate the effect of FDI inflows on exports and imports respectively. The estimation results confirmed the complementary relationship between FDI inflows and trade of China both on exports and imports, which has also been supported by previous empirical studies.