Foreign Direct Investment and Institutional Environment in Transition Economies

We analysed the relation between foreign direct investment and the quality of the institutional environment in transition economies. The analysis confirmed a significant impact of various institutional aspects on the inflow of foreign capital. To isolate the importance of the institutional environment from the impact of other factors, a panel data analysis was performed using the data of 24 transition economies in the period 1995–2002. The results showed that in the observed period the quality of the institutional environment significantly influenced the level of foreign direct investment in transition economies. Other variables that proved to have a statistically significant influence were budget deficit, insider privatization, and labour cost per hour.     

Foreign Investments as the Main Determinant Growth Factor in Asian Countries and Regions

The paper considers the main drivers of Asian growth and connects them with three groups of analyses tracks. Foreign direct investments, as the elective factor incorporating the main trends and perspectives, both at economic and financial level and in the social and political framework. Second, the regional approach, resulting more and more as the key, crucial factor in developing openness and international competitiveness, at the appropriate scale of convergence and integration in the worldwide system, has been presented in its EU connections and in the Asian peculiarities. Finally, as a third area of analysis, the new theories of growth and the capabilities already achieved to measure phenomena that were still not affordable only twenty years ago. The final results of the foresight model for evaluating long-term growth and the associated applied elaborations by the Deutsche Bank Research have almost figured out the proximity to an alternative theoretical scientific and modelling ``corpus' for the existing growth studies, specifically considering the Asian and emerging countries' recent jump into a high rates trend development, with the focus on China and India. For all these three analyses, the paper underlines the relevance for Asia to consider the experiences and successful steps of the European ``efficient laboratory', in a process of real integration towards the union of economies, societies, currencies, and security policies that has been investigated from different points of view, with the aim to focus the possible partnership and the future cooperation.     

Bilateral Investment Treaties and Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence of Asymmetric Effects on Vertical and Horizontal Investments

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are legal instruments used by developing and transition countries to provide investor protection and, by extension, promote higher levels of inward foreign direct investment (FDI). While the link between BITs and FDI has been extensively studied, little is known about the impact of the treaties on different forms of investment. Motivated by this observation, we examine the effects of BITs on vertical and horizontal FDI. We find that BITs are more positively related to vertical than to horizontal FDI. We also find that BITs tend to act as stronger substitutes for better institutions in the case of vertical relative to horizontal investments. The findings inform BIT strategies that are compatible with development objectives in developing and transition countries.     

The Business Environment Perceived by Foreign Investors in the Region Transylvania,Romania

The paper provides an overview of the perception of the business environment by foreign investors in Transylvania (Romania) as a result of a survey conducted on firms with foreign capital in this region. The first part of our study considers general information about the companies in the sample, regarding size, type of contribution, domain of activity, market, and other aspects. The second part of the study deals with factors concerning the location decision: the factors that influenced the success of operations and impediments and barriers encountered. The fact that despite several obstacles, the business environment is perceived by the majority of investors as a good one, allows the conclusion that the transformation process of the economy is moving in the right direction.      

Foreign Direct Investment in the Caribbean

This article addresses the question of whether the Caribbean is particularly attractive or unattractive to foreign investors, and if it has specific characteristics that attract or deter FDI. An econometric analysis of data from 135 countries for 1980‐2002 shows that the Caribbean does not suffer from low inflows of FDI; on the contrary, Caribbean countries receive more FDI than comparable countries in other regions. This reflects two contradictory effects. On the one hand, FDI inflows may be particularly sensitive to political instability in the region; on the other hand, the absence of regulation appears to have been a particularly beneficial factor in attracting FDI to the Caribbean.     

The Linkages Between FDI and Domestic Investment: Unravelling the Developmental Impact of Foreign Investment in Sub‐Saharan Africa

While the recent increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) to African countries is a welcome development, the impact of these resource inflows on economic development remains in doubt. This article argues that a key channel is its effects on domestic factor markets, especially domestic investment, and analyses the two‐way linkages between FDI and domestic investment in sub‐Saharan Africa. The results suggest, first, that FDI crowds in domestic investment and, secondly, that private investment is a driver of FDI, implying that African countries will gain much from improving the domestic climate. Moreover, there are alternatives to resource endowments as a means of attracting foreign investment to non‐resource‐rich countries.     

The Environment for Foreign Direct Investment and the Characteristics of Joint Ventures in China

Since China opened up to the world in 1979, it has tried hard to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to develop an export-oriented economy. This study assesses the investment climate in China during the period 1979–1990 and analyses the characteristics of joint ventures, which have been the predominant form of FDI in China.     

信用中介服务业发展的中外比较研究

以探讨规范和促进我国信用中介服务行业发展途径为研究目的,分别从信用中介服务业面临市场需求的培育过程、信用中介服务业的主体构成和信用中介服务业发展的法律环境三个方面分析对比了中外之不同,并对我国信用中介服务业在此三方面的建设和发展阐述了看法。     

Cross‐Cultural Validity of Bowen Theory in Southern European Countries

We present a comparison between Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal to test the cross‐cultural validity of the Differentiation of Self Inventory Revised (DSI‐R) Scales of emotional cut‐off (EC) and emotional reactivity (ER). Our study focuses on the importance of in‐depth analyses of the differentiation of self‐constructs from a cross‐cultural perspective and reflects on the possibility of conceptualising the universality of Bowen theory in southern European countries. The study involved 1,807 healthy individuals. All participants completed the DSI‐R (Skowron & Schmitt, 2003). It was found that the measurement models had a suitable fit for each country group. Nevertheless, in our study, the two DSI‐R subscales, ER and EC, highlighted a weak invariance, specifically demonstrating only the invariance of the pattern factor loadings and the magnitude of factor loadings in the four samples. The empirical and clinical implications of these data are discussed.     

Navigating communities: race,place, and travel in the history of maritime Southeast Asia

This paper examines intersecting notions of distance, place and community across Insular Southeast Asia for the last several hundred years. The piece is not an attempt to chronicle all these affiliations over time and space, but is rather an effort to re-think how people have moved in Southeast Asian history, who they did this with and why. The essay is divided into three parts. The first section looks at some of the meanings of place in the last five centuries, as place has pertained to communities in ‘centers’ and maritime ‘peripheries’, as well as in several supposedly discrete arenas. The second section focuses on people, and how different communities in Southeast Asia have envisioned the terms and conditions of movement in divergent ways. The last third of the paper concentrates on period, or how conceptions of community, distance and travel have changed over time. It is hoped that this essay will show how all three of these variables – people, place, and periodization – have intersected in specific, complicated ways in shaping local notions of ‘community’.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Services Trade Negotiations and Development: The Case of Tourism in the Caribbean

This article examines whether and how developing countries can use services trade negotiations to increase the amount of inward FDI conducive to development. It reviews how services trade rules can affect inward FDI, and employs panel data analysis with innovative use of instrumental variables in the tourism sectors of 9 Caribbean countries during 1997–2003. It argues that Caribbean countries may want to signal openness to inward FDI in GATS, while maintaining a degree of flexibility in the use of policy measures; in the current negotiations with the EU on Economic Partnership Agreements, the focus could be on emphasising the development dimension.     

The social dimension of European cohesion policy in a 27-state Europe: an analysis of the European Social Fund

On the basis of the relevant content of the Treaty of Lisbon (rejected in the Irish referendum of June 2008), this paper examines European Union cohesion policy as a fundamental dimension of the scant European social policy. In the context of a 27-state union with a slim budget, the European Social Fund remains the main social instrument of cohesion. An analysis of its application in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Galicia affords insights into the economic and political impact of European Union economic, social and territorial cohesion policy.     

Ukraine Economy and Finance in the Reform Process and the European Partnership: A Focus on Aerospace Industry

In spite of economic stabilization and the growth rate uprise since 2003, Ukraine has received less than EUR 5 billion in foreign direct investment over the last five years (from 2000 to 2004). This is less than other less FDI-attractive countries got, notwithstanding the fact that Ukraine has a steel industry of international significance, great agriculture potential, and an automotive industry which accounts for almost 6% of the value added generated by the industrial sector. The new government of Ukraine has declared the foreign investment flows into Ukraine among its top priorities. Unfair competition as a result of past bad government policies was the reason for the low FDI inflow. The former Ukrainian government promoted private interests of a limited group of businessmen. Unfair privatization sales with a limited access of other investors, as well as violent ownership takeovers, took place. The new government has committed to stop this practice. The role of independent courts will grow in dealing with conflicts, including the revision of unfair privatization sales. The determination to be integrated with the EU represents an ultimate goal. Such a step is expected to facilitate Ukraine's movement towards European standards in all spheres. I also present a brief inside evaluation on the aerospace industry, for both the civil and military sectors, starting from a sketch of the defense industry in 2000. The situation of civil and military aviation in Russia and Ukraine has many points in common and it could not be different after such a prolonged common history in the same military-industrial complex. Ukrainian industrial capacity is more or less completely secluded from international partners and markets. EU and NATO should not miss the opportunity to take into account the human capital and the technology achievement already accumulated by Ukrainian industries, research centres, academies, laboratories. The Ukraine aviation industry has suffered a serious decline over the last 15 years. Only recently new programs and major developments in the sector, which is undergoing a major restructuring, have reopened the perspectives of new projects in both civil and military aviation, as well as in space projects. The components sectors will be affected positively if the developments will be confirmed by concrete international partnerships and investments, first of all with the EU and the United States. Mergers and restructuring of the existent production plants are a real need. As experience shows in Europe and in the global market, no national way or revival of past alliances could help Ukraine to maintain a role in the aerospace sector.     

新形势下上海引进外资问题研究

基于新形势下上海引进外资出现的新情况、新问题,通过对上海投资环境、定位和区位的具体分析,建立上海吸引高端外资的系统框架,并提出上海在市场开放方面,应扩大外资进入领域,鼓励外资投向"上海制造"、"上海服务"、"上海创造"的高端产业,依次引导外资的产业结构升级;在投资环境方面,应建立统一和可预见的法制环境,完善社会信用制度,以此维护市场的竞争秩序;在市场准入方面,应放宽行业限制,不断调整和优化利用外资结构。     

Networking of Intellectual Capital in Southeast Europe: Boosting the Transition to Meritocratic Societies

Being aware that brain drain is perceived as a menace for national economies in the region of Southeast Europe, this paper will closely address the possible beneficial aspects of highly skilled migration and ways to achieve regional sustainability utilising this kind of migratory movement. In this sense, the appearence of a scientific diaspora and other knowledge networks would be stressed not just as a crucial result of their migration but also as a potential method of deriving benefits that can ensure development and consolidation of a meritocratic society. The process would be elaborated in the context of the regional integration with the European Union and accepting inherent standards, but also in the context of the wider social reforms which contain a transition process as whole. The paper will try to argue that civil societies in the region have the capacity to utilise accumulated human capital in the networks to a more significant extent.     

The transformation of Industrial Citizenship in the course of European integration

The question of the social dimension of European integration has so far remained unsettled. While on the European level, the civil and political dimension of citizenship has been strengthened, the evolution of economic and social rights are unclear, contradictory—and still under-investigated. Our contribution applies citizenship as a central category of modernization theory to inquire into European integration. In particular, our focus is set on the analysis of Economic Citizenship as a specific category of civil rights in the case of Germany. We discuss these dynamics by drawing on the example of three policy fields which illustrate various levels of Economic Citizenship. In this article we are pursuing two goals: Firstly, we revise Marshall's modernization theory against the background of European integration. Secondly, we draw attention to the concept of Industrial Citizenship, which has so far been neglected as a source of further development. We argue that in the process of European integration, industrial rights develop through a double movement, meaning an individual extension of market-based rights complemented through national de-collectivization and—connected to this—a re-stratification of market correcting rights.     

上海建设全国海外投资中心研究

上海建设全国海外投资中心,包括完善国际金融市场体系、聚集国际金融机构、创新国际金融(衍生)产品和汇集国际金融人才等。上海建设全国海外投资中心的策略包括:积极推动建立相关产业的国际生产和服务体系;推动对外投资项目经营管理过程的持续改进;适度加大海外投资服务平台的项目融资支持;鼓励海外资本投资于高新技术领域等。上海海外投资中心的主要任务有:努力创新和推动有利于金融市场发展的各种新措施在上海先行先试;努力为对外投资企业提供更好的配套服务;继续推进不同层次金融市场的发展和建设。     

The Role and Effects of Efficacy in Socioeconomic Development and Foreign Direct Investment: A Comparative Study of South Korea and Singapore

Abstract

There is a sizable amount of research and explanation concerning the rapid and sustainable development of newly industrialised countries (NIC) in Asia. This article seeks to create a deeper understanding of the relationships between the governmental sector, the economic sector, and the social sector in the Asian political arena. As such, it will explain how policies pursued in selected countries could have impacted the economies of the so-called ‘tiger’ or ‘dragon’ countries. In addition, the study will show how governmental efficacy is connected with socioeconomic development by means of comparing, as exemplars, South Korea and Singapore, in the period 1960–2007. The investigated period experienced heightened socioeconomic development in South Korea and Singapore. Stressing the historical evolution of socioeconomic development, the researcher accordingly focused on social, political, and economic outcomes in their relationship with the factor of macroeconomic stability and the varying amounts of foreign direct investment in the two nations. This study looks to create a deeper understanding of the role of government efficacy and socioeconomic development in an Asian context in which government efficacy and political development and institutions have played important roles in creating stable and continuous social and economic development. This idea of government efficacy and political development has helped to strengthen the capacity of governments to adapt and adjust their political agency’s capability to achieve political goals and sustainable socioeconomic development. South Korea has created institutions that are simpler than complex organisations and may lack autonomy and coherence. In contrast, Singapore has created complex and autonomous institutions with strong coherence. The findings in the outcomes section explain the different historical developments of South Korea and Singapore.     

The European Union in the flows of international students: attractiveness and inconsistency

This paper aims to describe the overall pattern of flows of international students and to determine the factors that can explain the variation of countries' attractiveness. In a second step, it assesses the position of the European Union as a whole in these flows at the global level. Is the EU strong enough in the global competition to attract the best brains? Besides, it shows how attractiveness factors can vary according to the profile of a sample of European Union member countries. In the third section of the paper, we raise some reflexions on the relations of the EU with its neighbourhood with respect to the flows of international students. In fact, the EU may not be able to maintain its status as a major power if it does not better regulate its relations with neighbour countries, especially in the domain of higher education and students' mobility.     

The moderating effect of alcohol use on protective and risky sex behaviors among college students in the Southeast United States

ABSTRACT

Objective: College students are a high-risk population for new human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) diagnoses. Although condom use self-efficacy and HIV knowledge can protect against risky sexual behavior (RSB), these same protective factors have been shown to exacerbate RSB. The influence of alcohol use can further complicate these protective factors to influence RSB. Participants: 689 African American/Black and non-Hispanic White college students attending a public university in the Southeast United States. Method: This study sought to examine the relations between condom use self-efficacy and HIV knowledge with RSB and the moderating effect of alcohol use. Results: Findings showed positive associations between RSB and HIV knowledge and alcohol use. Unexpectedly, low frequency drinkers with high condom use self-efficacy were at increased risk for RSB compared to high frequency drinking counterparts. Conclusions: Findings point to the need to target prevention services for low-risk drinkers in college settings.