Timor-Leste is among the youngest nations in the world. It started its independence under difficult circumstances: poverty is widespread, education is poor, the industrial sector is non-existent, and political turbulence is on the rise. On the positive side, future oil revenues are predicted to...

Equitization (privatization) has been at the core of the policy debate in Vietnam over the last decade but the government’s attitude seems ambivalent. On the one hand, equitization is emphasized in policy statements. On the other, the progress on equitization has been relatively modest and...

Timor-Leste began its independence as one of the poorest nations in the world. Substantial progress has been made thereafter but the challenges for future development are numerous. High population growth and modest growth of GDP means that per capita income is declining and that the extent of...

This paper surveys the effects of outward foreign direct investment on the developed home countries of multinational corporations. The focus is on the production interactions arising from outward investment – what is the impact on home country exports and production structure – but the paper...

Multinational firms pay relatively high wages. Less is known about the wage structure within multinational and non-multinational firms. We examine the impact of acquisitions on wage dispersion in Sweden using a large matched employer-employee data set. Foreign acquisitions of Swedish firms...

Lao PDR has been relatively successful in raising incomes and reducing poverty since the early 1990s. However, the gains in terms of poverty reduction are unevenly distributed across regions and population groups. This paper uses a detailed household survey data set to examine the determinants...

Science & Technology (S&T) is high on the Chinese policy agenda but there are large uncertainties on the actual S&T development. For instance, previous studies tend to focus only on large and medium-sized enterprises (LMEs). The situation in Chinese small firms is far less explored. This paper...

Numerous studies on firm-level data have reported higher average wages in foreign-owned firms than in domestically-owned firms. This, however, does not necessarily imply that the individual worker’s wage increase with foreign ownership. Using detailed matched employer-employee data on the...

The Cambodian garment industry in Phnom Penh; employing as many as a quarter of a million people could be seen as a success story. Workers are in domestic terms paid at decent rates and their employments have had an important impact on their but also their rural families’ standards of living....

Bosnia and Herzegovina has experienced a turbulent post-independence transition. It can be argued that the level of trust is likely to have been negatively affected by this turbulence and that it is important to restore trust to achieve sustainable political and economic development. This paper...