This paper reviews alleged societal benefits and costs of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) as suggested by academia, governments, business and civil society. It sets out the wide range of issues that diverse actors have proposed in the context of assessing the societal benefits and...

Governments are facing an increasing number of arbitration claims by foreign investors relating to important public policies or seeking substantial damages, and many governments are taking a greater joint interest in how such cases are resolved in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This...

This paper explores the role that international commercial arbitration plays in facilitating foreign direct investment (FDI). International commercial arbitration is a system of private commercial law that enables firms to more effectively enforce contracts by allowing them to avoid...

The debate on trade and growth increasingly focuses on the composition of exports. Exports of more "sophisticated" products appear to be positively correlated with growth, and upgrading the quality of exports is high on the policy agenda of many countries. This study presents evidence suggesting...

This paper examines the microeconomic motivation of governments to provide tax incentives for foreign direct investment. Author applies the classical models of oligopoly to subsidy competition, endogenousing investment incentives, but leaving tax rates exogenous. According to the conventional...

Governments are facing an increasing number of arbitration claims by foreign investors relating to important public policies or seeking substantial damages, and many governments are taking a greater joint interest in how such cases are resolved in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This...

In this paper, we study the impacts of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) between the EU countries and China on EU home investments. We consider BITs as "treatments" that provide further access to global value chains (GVCs). We identify the causal impacts of the BITs on the relationship...

China accelerated FDI policy reforms since the presidency of Donald Trump. We evaluate how multinational enterprises (MNEs) respond to such reforms amid rising trade policy uncertainty. Applying difference-in-differences approach on monthly bilateral FDI from 2015 to 2019, we find that reforms...

Retail in India has a good growth potential but this sector is the least evolved with the growth of organized retail being substantially slow. In such a scenario, the government of India in early 2013 allowed 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail. FDI plays an important role in the economic...

Located at the heart of global value chains (GVCs), intangibles are documented to have a high and rising value capture, and to depend on both agglomeration economies and global connectedness for their performance. In this paper, we study how the distinct nature of intangibles require countries...