Trading Spaces
Foreign Direct Investment Regulation, 1970–2000

This book is the first comprehensive study of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization.

Sonal S. Pandya (Author)

9781107040342, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 December 2013

184 pages, 11 b/w illus. 23 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.7 cm, 0.4 kg

This book is the first comprehensive study of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization. Political economy FDI research has long focused on how host-country politics influence the supply of FDI, or how firms choose to invest. By contrast, this book focuses on the politics of FDI demand: the sources of citizens' preferences for FDI inflows and countries' foreign ownership restrictions. Professor Sonal S. Pandya's theory of FDI regulation identifies how FDI redistributes income within host countries, raises local wages, and creates competition for local firms. Empirical tests also emphasize the central role of multinational cooperations' productive assets in shaping the politics of FDI. These tests feature an original dataset of annual country-industry foreign ownership regulations that spans more than one hundred countries during the period 1970–2000. This book highlights the economic and political foundations of global economic integration and supplies the tools to understand the growing economic conflicts between advanced economics and large emerging markets such as China and India.

1. Introduction: political economy of FDI regulation in the twentieth century
2. FDI: why companies invest and countries restrict
3. Why restrict FDI? Weakening MNCs' control over firm-specific assets
4. Individual preferences for FDI inflows: evidence from public opinion data
5. Democratization and cross-national FDI liberalization, 1970–2000
6. Export vs market-oriented FDI: sources of cross-industry variation
7. Conclusion: FDI in the twenty-first century.

Subject Areas: Public finance [KFFD], Political economy [KCP], International economics [KCL]