Does Trust Matter for Foreign Direct Investment Decisions?

Author(s):  
Sibel Bali Eryigit

Factors affecting the investment decisions of multinational companies are heavily researched in the literature. However, the number of studies dealing with the socio-cultural characteristics of host countries among these factors is quite limited. Among the cultural characteristics affecting location decisions, one of the primary cultural characteristics is the general level of trust between individuals. In this scope, this chapter intends to research whether the general level of trust in a society has an effect on the location decisions of foreign investors. In line with this objective, an analysis will be conducted by employing the panel data method for 39 emerging market countries for the period between 1998 and 2011. According to the results of the study, a low general level of trust in the host country represents a significant disadvantage for the attraction of foreign direct investments.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1773-1788
Author(s):  
Sibel Bali Eryigit

Factors affecting the investment decisions of multinational companies are heavily researched in the literature. However, the number of studies dealing with the socio-cultural characteristics of host countries among these factors is quite limited. Among the cultural characteristics affecting location decisions, one of the primary cultural characteristics is the general level of trust between individuals. In this scope, this chapter intends to research whether the general level of trust in a society has an effect on the location decisions of foreign investors. In line with this objective, an analysis will be conducted by employing the panel data method for 39 emerging market countries for the period between 1998 and 2011. According to the results of the study, a low general level of trust in the host country represents a significant disadvantage for the attraction of foreign direct investments.


2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Violeta Domanović ◽  
Sandra Stojadinović Jovanović

Abstract For Serbia the efforts to attract investments from abroad came to the fore with the beginning of transition process. The process of ownership transformation in Serbia most often implied foreign direct investment inflows, because it included participation of foreign investors in purchase of domestic companies that had been the subject of privatisation. The subject of research in the paper is Serbian experience in attracting foreign capital into local export companies with special emphasis on their profitability. Aim of the paper is to estimate the profitability of leading Serbian exporters financed by foreign direct investments, i.e. to determine whether and to what extent foreign direct investments contributed to the increase of return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), as basic profitability measures. The results show that, in the case of Serbian exporters, the profitability varies, both per companies and per individual years. There is no general conclusion that foreign direct investments contributed to the ROA increase. On the contrary, ROA values significantly varied during this period. Either enormous increase or enormous decrease could be observed. The same goes for ROE values.


Author(s):  
Mollah Aminul Islam ◽  
Md Nahin Hossain ◽  
Muhammad Asif Khan ◽  
Mohammad Raihanul Hasan ◽  
Md Riad Hassan

In this study, we review the literature to find how the financial development of a country attracts foreign direct investments for a sustainable real sector development of the country. The area is least focused on literature. Thus we don’t limit our search and review to any time or database or journal category. We find the theoretical logic and empirical evidence so far available in the literature. Our review finds that the development of the financial sector of a country is one of the most important attractors of FDIs. Theoretically, financial sector development works as a symbol of trust and goodness to the new potential investors and a good resource allocation channel for the existing investors. However, very few researchers find that FDIs are more prone to countries with a low developed financial system which may happen due to the presence of risk-taker foreign investors and risk-averse domestic entrepreneurs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 760-772
Author(s):  
Yury K Zaytsev

The economic and political sanctions had a significant impact on the behavior of foreign investors in the real sector of the Russian economy in the period 2014-2017. Despite a significant outflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2015, in 2016-2017, there was an increase in investment activity associated with a steady inflow of FDI, which could be explained by the change in investment strategies of foreign business in Russia. The purpose of the study. The article assesses the impact of Western sanctions and Russian countersanctions on the influx of foreign direct investment into Russia. Methods. The work is based on methods of statistical analysis of the behavior of foreign investors in Russia on the basis of macroeconomic data of the Central Bank of Russia and microeconomic data of the “Ruslana” database. Results. The author gives various assessments of sanctions and counter-sanctions impact on the Russian and European economies, and compares the effects of sanctions policies in Russia and Iran. The stylized facts, identified by the author at the micro level, allow to interpret the macro statistics provided by the Central Bank of Russia at a qualitative level. The conclusion . In conclusion, the author gives recommendations on the possibilities of using new mechanisms of interaction with international institutions to overcome the investment crisis as a consequence of the sanctions regime.


2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (S2) ◽  
pp. 73-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdolna Sass ◽  
Jana Vlčková

There has been an increase in outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and in the number of locally-owned or controlled multinationals in the Czech Republic and Hungary. However, data problems hinder to determine accurately the underlying trends and the main factors behind the changes. Data on outward FDI contain investment realised by all locally operational firms, regardless of their ownership. We rely on newly available balance of payments manual 6 (BPM) data and on company case studies. We show that outward investment by Czech firms must be much higher than what balance of payments data show. Hungary's case is the opposite. The leading Czech and Hungarian foreign investor firms can be categorised as “virtual indirect” foreign investors: they are in majority foreign ownership, but under domestic control. The reason for this special type of firms dominating in outward foreign direct investments can be found in the privatisation technique applied in these countries during the transition process.


This chapter develops a framework for the whole book and defines a road map for the chapters that follow it. However, in order to follow the road map or to go through the stages of analyses defined for a comprehensive economic study called a feasibility study for an investment project, the starting point is to select a country for the foreign direct investment contemplated. Therefore, country selection is the first step for starting a comprehensive economic study for planning and analyzing foreign direct investments. For this reason, before starting to plan, analyze, and evaluate a foreign direct investment, a country has to be determined for the direct investment project intended. As such, factors affecting country selection in terms of opportunities and risks related to alternative countries are specified and elaborated first and then put together in an example to develop a methodology for selecting a host country for the direct investment planned abroad. Country selection is based on a procedural methodology that goes through, firstly, a scanning stage that aims at identifying possible countries for investment; secondly, eliminating less desirable countries for determining possible candidates; and finally, choosing the most adequate country for investment through a so-called opportunity-risk matrix.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-264
Author(s):  
Herliana Herliana

Investment arbitration has been acclaimed as an important part of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) movement around the globe because it provides a neutral and trustable forum for settling investment dispute. However, many argue that investment arbitration often becomes advocates of foreign investors and neglect the developing country’s interests as the host of investment. This paper aims at studying the investment arbitration awards rendered by International Center for Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID) tribunals launched against developing countries. The question is whether and to what extent those awards have equally observed the interests of foreign investors and host states of investments. To answer the questions, this paper employs case study method and use publicly available ICSID cases. This research shows that some ICSID tribunals have inconsistent reasoning which led to contradictory decisions. Apparently, as some cases indicate ICSID tribunals gave more weight to the need to protect foreign investors rather than host countries’ development interests. As a consequence, inconsistency and ambiguity have led to uncertainty and unpredictability of the forum. This is not only disadvantaged the parties due to inability to foresee the likely outcome of the disputes but also endanger the ICSID tribunals’ credibility as neutral and reliable forum.


Author(s):  
Renfei Gao

AbstractInward foreign direct investment (IFDI) carries critical implications for emerging market multinational enterprises’ (EMNEs’) outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). While extant research provides evidence for the positive linkage between IFDI and EMNEs’ OFDI, less is known about the directionality of such OFDI—where to go. This study aims to extend the IFDI-OFDI linkage by differentiating EMNEs’ upward and downward OFDI (i.e., OFDI projects in more and less advanced host countries than their home markets). Using panel data on 1334 Chinese multinationals, I find that IFDI promotes EMNEs’ upward OFDI, but this effect is weakened by state ownership and industry competition. Moreover, my findings show that although IFDI is not related to EMNEs’ downward OFDI in general, their linkage becomes positive in the conditions of higher state ownership or weaker industry competition. This study advances our understanding of the directionality (i.e., where to go) of EMNEs’ OFDI in the face of IFDI spillovers.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungmin Kim ◽  
Dong Kee Rhee

This paper examines the trends and determinants of Korean outward foreign direct investment and the extent to which location decision explanation needs to be nested within the general theory of the multinational firm. In the context of investment development path developed by Dunning and Narula, we examine the important factors for the location decisions of Korean outward foreign direct investment, considering host countries at very different stages of economic development. In line with this objective, we test empirically the determinants of Korean outward investment using macro economic factors of host countries. Thus, we identify several factors that impact on such trends and develop hypotheses that could explain the phenomenon generically. We test our hypotheses using official Korean outward FDI data collected from 1994 to 2005. The behavior of Korean multinational firms shows several distinctive features. As a result, we find that the dynamic effects of economic development have influenced on the changes of outward FDI characteristics.


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