Role of Governance and Institutional Environment in Affecting Cross Border M&As, Alliances and Project Financing : Evidence from Emerging Markets

The growth in foreign activities has attracted numerous investigations on their flow into various regions of the world. The majority of these inquiries however have tended to focus on activities taking place between U.S.A and Europe, NAFTA countries, countries within Eastern and Central Europe, or within Asia-Pacific nations. There is a scarcity of research examining foreign investment activities in the emerging markets of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The goal of this paper is to void this gap by analyzing the patterns of such activities in this region. It focuses more specifically on components of foreign investment that are not usually included in the traditional measure of FDI, namely cross border M&As, alliances, and project financing. The paper explores the impact of governance and institutional environment in affecting investment activities in the region. It reports a strong association of economic freedom, property rights, and regulations with multiple proxies of foreign investments in the sample countries