Contagious capitalism Gallagher, Mary Elizabeth
2008., 20110627, 2011, 2005, 2005-01-01, 20050101
eBook
One of the core assumptions of recent American foreign policy is that China's post-1978 policy of "reform and openness" will lead to political liberalization. This book challenges that assumption and ...the general relationship between economic liberalization and democratization. Moreover, it analyzes the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization on Chinese labor politics.
This book analyzes the regulatory framework that Russia has developed to attract private capital and technology in the modernization of the electricity infrastructure. Comparing Russian and EU ...electricity law, the book identifies regulatory risks and examines investors' protection under Russian and international investment law.
"In recent years, the world has witnessed the coming of age of international investment law. The numbers are telling with over 2600 bilateral investment treaties, over 462 free trade, customs unions ...and other economic partnership agreements notified to the WTO, with 276 being in force, an increasing number of which include investment chapters, and over 350 known investor-State treaty-based arbitrations. This phenomenon has not left many untouched as over 175 States have signed international investment agreements (IIAs) and at least 81 governments have faced investment treaty arbitrations. The regime, however, has not been without criticisms. The main criticisms being: that IIAs do not fulfil their great bargain the promotion of investment, while they effectively protect powerful economic interests; that IIAs protect investor's rights over the public interest of the host country; that the dispute settlement system put in place by IIAs lacks legitimacy due to the fundamentally ad hoc nature of investor-State arbitration; and that the complexity and cost of the system are out of control.This book takes stock of developments in international investment law and analyzes potential solutions to some of these criticisms from the perspective of international public policy, in negotiations, substantive obligations and dispute resolution. The book is prepared by a group of scholars and practitioners from Canada and Europe. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to the subject, with analysis from the legal, political and economic perspectives. The first part of the book traces the evolution in IIA treaty-making and provides an evaluation from a political economy and economics perspective. The other three parts are organised around the concepts of efficiency, legitimacy and sustainability. Each contributor analyzes one or more issues of treaty negotiation, substance or dispute resolution, with the ultimate aim of improving IIA treaty-making in these respects."--
In the 1990s, inexperienced firms from rich countries jumped directly into huge projects in some of the world's least developed countries. Their investments reflected almost unbridled enthusiasm for ...emerging markets and trust in new international guarantees. Yet within a few years, the business pages of the world press were reporting an exploding number of serious disputes between foreign investors and governments. As the expected bonanzas proved elusive and the protections weaker than anticipated, many foreign investors became disenchanted with emerging markets. So bad were the outcomes in some cases that a few notable infrastructure firms came close to bankruptcy; several others hurriedly fled poor countries as projects soured. This book shows why disputes developed, points out how investments and disputes have changed over time, explores why various firms responded differently to crises, and questions the basic wisdom of some of the enthusiasm for privatization. It tells how firms, countries, and multilateral development organizations can build a conflict-management system that balances the legitimate economic and social concerns of the host countries and those of investors. Without these changes, multinational corporations will lose profitable opportunities and poor countries will not gain the contributions that foreign investment can make toward alleviating poverty.
Genetic Variation in Financial Decision-Making CESARINI, DAVID; JOHANNESSON, MAGNUS; LICHTENSTEIN, PAUL ...
The Journal of finance (New York),
October 2010, Volume:
65, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Individuals differ in how they construct their investment portfolios, yet empirical models of portfolio risk typically account only for a small portion of the cross-sectional variance. This paper ...asks whether genetic variation can explain some of these individual differences. Following a major pension reform Swedish adults had to form a portfolio from a large menu of funds. We match data on these investment decisions with the Swedish Twin Registry and find that approximately 25% of individual variation in portfolio risk is due to genetic variation. We also find that these results extend to several other aspects of financial decision-making.
Using bottom-up information from corporate financial statements, we examine the relation between aggregate investment, future equity returns, and investor sentiment. Consistent with the business ...cycle literature, corporate investments peak during periods of positive sentiment, yet these periods are followed by lower equity returns. This pattern exists in most developed countries and survives controls for discount rates, equity flows, valuation multiples, operating accruals, and other investor sentiment measures. Higher aggregate investments also precede greater earnings disappointments, lower short-window earnings announcement returns, and lower macroeconomic growth. We conclude aggregate corporate investment is an alternative, and possibly sharper, measure of market-wide investor sentiment.
This book offers a thorough analysis of the new Law of Investment in Iraq, with a full description of the incentives, such as tax-exemption, protection and guarantees offered to the investor for ...investment projects in Iraq. It provides very useful guidance relating to legal procedures for investment in the country.
Since the new German federal government has imposed tight fiscal policy restrictions on itself, a pragmatic approach is needed to finance the spending requirements of the transformation. The ...financing instruments mentioned in the coalition agreement appears to be suitable in principle for meeting key fiscal challenges facing the federal government in the coming years. However, they need to be quantified in concrete terms as quickly as possible and designed to ensure legal security in order to send reliable signals for the necessary capacity building, particularly in the construction industry and public administration.
Urban Vibrancy and Corporate Growth DOUGAL, CASEY; PARSONS, CHRISTOPHER A.; TITMAN, SHERIDAN
The Journal of finance (New York),
February 2015, Volume:
70, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We find that a firm's investment is highly sensitive to the investments of other firms headquartered nearby, even those in very different industries. A firm's investment also responds to fluctuations ...in the cash flows and stock prices (q) of local firms outside its sector. These patterns do not appear to reflect exogenous area shocks such as local shocks to labor or real estate values, but rather suggest that local agglomeration economies are important determinants of firm investment and growth.
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