Three Essays on the Political Economy of Foreign Investments and International Business

Three Essays on the Political Economy of Foreign Investments and International Business
Author: Trung A.. Dang
Publisher:
Total Pages: 87
Release: 2017
Genre: Democracy
ISBN:

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"My dissertation consists of three essays on the political economy of foreign investments and international business. The first essay investigates the relationship between a country's level of democracy and its ability to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). According to a well-established finding in the literature, democratic countries can attract more FDI. However, I show that this positive association between democracy and FDI disappears once I control for a selection bias in which FDI tends to come from democratic countries in the first place. I then show that it is not democracy by itself but the level of political similarity between any two countries that affects their FDI flow. In other words, democracy does not attract FDI, political similarity does. The second essay looks into how well countries absorb foreign investments after they receive those investments. I find that FDI contributes less to economic growth in more democratic countries. This result survives a long series of robustness checks, and its substantive effect is considerably larger than those of several other factors that affect growth, including market size, trade openness, development level, and inflation. While the first two essays are empirical in nature and primarily deal with politics at the macro level (i.e., between countries), the third essay is a theoretical study ofthe strategic interaction between micro-level actors (i.e., firms, activist groups) and their governments. It is, to my knowledge, the first game-theoretic model of private politics - a relatively young field - that focuses on the international dimension. I find that activist campaigns in democratic and nondemocratic countries have different characteristics due to the nature of the competition between firms and activist groups. Counterintuitively, I find that even if governments have pure economic motives - i.e., they only care about gaining investments for their countries?there still does not exist a "race to the bottom" in equilibrium, as commonly expected. Finally, I propose a novel answer to the perennial question in political science of why there is so "little" lobbying money in politics, which differs from previous explanations in that mine is the first one that is based on a competition dynamic."--Pages vi-vii.

Three Essays on Investments and International Trade

Three Essays on Investments and International Trade
Author: Hyo-Youn Chu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

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Abstract: My dissertation analyzes investment decisions made by firms.Chapter 1 develops a dynamic structural model of a single agent decision in order to analyze the effect of voluntary export restrains (VERs) on quality-upgrade and foreign direct investment (FDI) behavior. I estimate the model parameters using a variant of the two-step estimator developed by Bajari, Benkard and Levin (2007). Using panel data of Japanese firms in the U.S. automobile industry, both activities are found to have significant sunk costs, which introduces inter-temporal interactions in decisions. I simulate counterfactuals based on the estimation of the structural model. In the absence of the VERs, both quality-upgrade and the probability of undertaking FDI decrease. The second simulation examines the substitution effect between the two investment activities. The proposal to restrict FDI policy causes a dramatic increase in the level of quality-upgrade. Similarly, the proposal to restrict quality-upgrade policy results in an increase in the probability of FDI.Chapter 2 examines the trade-off of developing a brand facing a firm. Establishing the brand on the one hand reduces liquidity risk perceived by investors through effective marketing, but on the other hand increases market risk through incurring a substantial advertising expenditure to accumulate intangible assets. I estimate the model parameters using a new liquidity-augmented Capital Asset Pricing Model developed by Liu (2006). I find that as advertising expenditure increases, the brand lowers liquidity risk associated with perceived risk by consumers and investors, but increases market risk associated with asset-market structure.Chapter 3 presents a theoretical model of negligence and causation by a firm and examines the influence of the causation test on the level of the firm's investment for care under negligence. In this model, a firm's decision to take care reduces the likelihood of an accident only in the event that some nondeterministic intervention occurs. The effects of the causation test depend on the information available to the court, and the manner in which the test is implemented. The key effect of the causation test is to induce firms to take into account the distribution of the intervention probability as well as its expected value

Essays in International Trade and Public Economics

Essays in International Trade and Public Economics
Author: Margarita M. Kalamova
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783631621394

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The essays of this book are contributions to the empirical Literature in International Trade and Public Economics. They deal with the relationship between the structure and quality of the public sector and the process of economic integration. Two of the essays add to the empirical determinants of trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) and to the numerous applications of the theory of government decentralization. Decentralization tends to discourage inward FDI and domestic trade and to increase imports and exports. A third essay focuses on the effect of governments' intangible assets - such as consumer perceptions about countries and products from these countries - on FDI. A country's nation brand is shown to have a significant and large positive effect on investment flows.