Risky Investments: How Local and Foreign Investors Finesse Corruption-Rife Emerging Markets

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Kay Hoang

How do investors enter and navigate markets where there is a general lack of access to information and where the law is open to interpretation? Drawing on interview data with 100 research subjects in Vietnam’s real estate market, this article makes contributions to the literatures of economic sociology and development. First, looking at a diverse set of local, regional, and global investors, I theorize how market actors pursue different strategies to manage risky investments based on their proximity to state officials. Investors’ proximity depends on four processes: legal/regulatory, social ties, cultural matching, and stage of investment. Second, I highlight how multiple state–market relations can coexist within the same state. Investors’ varying levels of proximity to government officials shape their relationship with the state as one of patronage (predatory), mutual destruction (mutual hostage), or transparency (developmental). Heterogeneous state–market relations help account for the persistence of foreign direct investment in markets that display both a great deal of corruption and a great deal of legality and transparency.

Author(s):  
Rima H BinSaeed

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with its developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure has shown a major progress in business opportunities for overseas investors. Saudi Arabia’s education sector is one of the most attractive investment opportunities for the foreign investors Earlier in 2019, 9 new foreign education enterprises were granted investor licenses, amounting to a total of $141mn of investment deals. The Saudi government introduced Saudi Vision 2030, an aspiring development plan that foresees vital prospects for foreign investors in the regions of education, housing, health and energy, amongst others. In 2016, Saudi Arabia permitted the procurement of 100% of assets by foreign investors in retail and wholesale trade. A privatisation program has also been introduced. The government also attempts to attract FDI in the regions of renewable energy and entertainment. A foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a vital role in local and international economy. Several opportunities and ventures are encouraged by Saudi Arabia to improve the standard of business and economical environments. To accomplish the finances for the projects SAGIA, the lawful authority is there to smooth the progress of investments, which encourages Saudi FDI prospective to grow simultaneously. FDI has a greater scope for diverse businesses and investing in to underdeveloped industrial sectors. FDI plays an important role in boosting the economy of Saudi Arabia by managing international investors who shares the huge portion of 34% in General GDP (Gross domestic product) of Saudi Arabia. This paper aims to review the literature to shed light on the steps taken by the government to increase FDI in the country and what are the current trends that are helping to fulfil VISION 2030.


Author(s):  
Halil Bajrami ◽  
Bashkim Bellaqa

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has a special and specific importance for the Republic of Kosovo taking into account the conditions and economic development, which in turn impact the economic development and social improvement of the country. For the state to have a greater absorption of FDI, significant improvement should be made in improving the management capacity in order to create a motivating environment for foreign investment, which is related to the improvement of macro-factors and microfactors at the country level in order to make the environment as attractive as possible for FDI. The purpose of this paper is to present the trend of FDI, the trend of export with a keen eye on Kosovo and to present the correlation of FDI with export. Firstly, at the beginning of this paper, a theoretical review of the literature on definitions of FDI in economic terms and definitions of export is presented. Secondly, the trend and comparison of FDI and exports over the years is presented. Thirdly, FDI trends in Kosovo were analyzed by the country of origin of these investments, etc. Fourthly, in the context of this paper, an analysis in terms of investment management at the country level in order to create an attractive investment environment was made. Fifthly, as part of this paper, empirical analyzes showing the correlations between FDI and Export in the Kosovo case have been made. FDI trends in Kosovo have been decreasing over the years, which must be improved by creating a motivating environment for both domestic and foreign investors. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 1955-1978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weihua Su ◽  
Dongcai Zhang ◽  
Chonghui Zhang ◽  
Josef Abrhám ◽  
Mihaela Simionescu ◽  
...  

Considering the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the sustainable development of a country, the main aim of this paper is to identify some macroeconomic factors that positively or negatively influence FDI in Visegrad group countries after the European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004. We employed two types of approaches in our analysis: i) time series and ii) panel data approach. According to the generalized ridge regressions estimated in Bayesian framework, the perceived corruption was a factor that influenced FDI in all the countries. In Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia corruption came through as a serious obstacle for FDIs since 2005, but this was not the case for Hungary. Even if Hungary is perceived as a country with high influence, foreign investors seem no to care about this fact and are more interested in the quality of human resources and the possibility to increase exports. Our panel approach based on a panel ARDL model identified a significant relationship between FDI, corruption index and labour force with advanced education however this causality was only detected in the long run. According to the Granger causality in panel, the attraction of FDI inflows succeeded in generating changes in total tax rate, but the issues related to corruption were not reduced at an acceptable level for foreign investors in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.


2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosanna Pittiglio ◽  
Filippo Reganati ◽  
Edgardo Sica

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can augment the productivity of domestic firms insofar as knowledge ?spills over? from foreign investors to local producers. The capacity of local companies to exploit knowledge from MNEs can be affected by the technology gap between foreign and local enterprises at both horizontal (in the same industry) and vertical (in different industries) level. Whereas most of the empirical literature has focused exclusively on the analysis of horizontal and backward spillovers (i.e. between MNEs and local suppliers), the present paper also examines the relationship between FDI-related spillovers and technological gap in the Italian manufacturing sector at forward level (i.e. between MNEs and local buyers). Results suggest that at both intra-industry and forward level, the technological gap is of considerable importance for the spillover effect, particularly in the case of low-medium gap.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
Hulkar Azimova ◽  

This article describes the essence of foreign investment, the introduction of a comprehensive system of legal guarantees and benefits for foreign investors. The issues of strengthening the protection of the legitimate interests of investors in attracting foreign investment are also discussed.Keywords:investment project, investment commitment, investment policy, foreign direct investment, foreign investor rights, investment agreement, legal regime, investment visa


Author(s):  
Elin Palm ◽  
Misse Wester

This chapter addresses the competing interests of privacy versus public access to information. The chapter explores the collective and individual value of privacy and public access in a manner that considers information at the macrosocial and macroethical level. By using Sweden as a case study, we exemplify the classic and irresolvable tension between issues of information availability and confidentiality, integrity, and privacy. Given that privacy and public access interests will constantly need to be rebalanced, we present the views of government officials due to their unique role in implementing this balance. We conclude with an analysis of the reasonableness of this conduct.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pick-Soon Ling ◽  
Ming K. Lim ◽  
Ming-Lang Tseng

Sustainable foreign direct investment (SFDI) contributes to the development of the economic, environmental, and social aspects in rational governance practices in Malaysia. Prior studies lack the integration and synthesis of the SFDI attributes from the policymakers and foreign investors’ perceptions. These attributes are measured through the qualitative information and subjective perceptions and need to transform into comparable values. The fuzzy Delphi method is applied to identify the valid set of SFDI attributes and confirms the validity and reliability of these attributes. Moreover, prior studies have not examined the importance and performance of those valid attributes in qualitative information. The fuzzy importance and performance analysis is proposed to assess the attributes’ importance and performance level. The results show that financial, macroeconomic, and institutional policy aspects are among the most important SFDI attributes, together with environmental and social aspects. This study identifies the discrepancies between policymakers and foreign investors and suggests that the financial aspect is the priority of foreign investors that needs to be concentrated for improvements; meanwhile, the institutional and policies and social aspects in performance level are presented as a big contradistinction. The theoretical and policy implications are discussed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hieu P. Nguyen ◽  
Huyen T. Pham

Vietnam has become an attractive destination for foreign investors looking to maximize economic gains due to an increasingly young and educated population, a fast growing middle class, political stability, low labor cost, and loose operational standards. The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) has brought many positive outcomes to Vietnam, but its dark side is beginning to emerge. This article discusses one of the negative aspects of FDI-driven economic development in Vietnam through a high-profile, ongoing scandal involving Vedan, a Taiwanese company caught in the poisoning of the Thi Vai river. The authors provide implications for policy making and future research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 269-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ishak Ramli ◽  
Sukrisno Agoes ◽  
Ignatius Roni Setyawan

The purpose of this study is to prove that there was herding behavior by domestic investors following that of foreign investors in the Indonesian Capital Market (IDX) and that the herding was influenced by information asymmetry. It began when global investors undertook international diversification to the IDX because the returns on their portfolios were not on the efficient frontier during the crisis and because of the low correlation between Indonesia’s economy and the American and European economies. Utilizing the IDX daily transaction data during the years 2009-2011, the herding behavior of domestic investors, which followed that of foreign investors, was tested by Lakonishok models as was the influence of information asymmetry on the herding. It was found that the herding behavior in the IDX occurred in buy, sell or entire herdings (buy and sell). There were 0.40 to 0.55 buy herdings and 0.20 to 0.40 sell herdings during the crisis in 2008 and 2009. Buy herding then continued in 2010 onwards, although with lower intensity (0.05 to 0.20); however, sell herding decreased dramatically, and there has been almost no sell herding since then. Nevertheless, domestic investors did then sell in the opposite strategy, which was to sell when foreign investors tended to buy. Subsequent findings demonstrated that herding occurred with the influence of information asymmetry between domestic and foreign investors.


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