This article presents a framework intended to provide pension funds with practical guidance for the successful implementation of a sustainable investing strategy. The framework is developed with ...respect to the UK and US pension funds (as these share certain common legal characteristics) and focuses on the changes that pension funds adopting such a strategy should make to their investment strategies and governance (particularly through the formulation and articulation of clear investment mission and strong investment beliefs). The article proceeds with a review of socially responsible investment (SRI) and more recent responsible investment (RI) literature, in the context of growing public awareness (but not necessarily understanding) of the concept of sustainability ("Literature review of SRI field: SRI, RI and sustainable investing" section). It then examines the literature on pension fund governance, arguing the need for more detailed practical guidance for funds moving towards sustainable investing, especially for those implementing a sustainable investing strategy ("Anglo-American pension fund governance" section). It presents the framework for the practical implementation of sustainable investing in the "Sustainable investing framework" section. Finally, we review the relevant Anglo-American legal backdrop, outlining how pension funds adopting our framework should approach their fiduciary obligations, and then discussing potential regulatory enablers of sustainable investment ("Legal context: barriers to and enablers of sustainable investing" section).
International trade agreements lead to more foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. This article examines the causal mechanisms underpinning this trade-investment linkage by asking ...whether institutional features of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which allow governments to make more credible commitments to protect foreign investments, indeed result in greater FDI. The authors explore three institutional differences. First, they examine whether PTAs that have entered into force lead to greater FDI than PTAs that have merely been negotiated and signed, since only the former constitute a binding commitment under international law. Second, they ask whether trade agreements that have investment clauses lead to greater FDI. Third, they consider whether PTAs with dispute-settlement mechanisms lead to greater FDI. Analyses of FDI flows into 122 developing countries from 1971 to 2007 show that trade agreements that include stronger mechanisms for credible commitment induce more FDI. Institutional diversity in international agreements matters.
Global Property Investment Baum, Andrew E; Hartzell, David
2011, 2011., 2012/01/01, 2012, 2011-10-24, 2011-11-02
eBook
Developments in the sophistication of global real estate markets mean that global real estate investment is now being executed professionally. Thanks to academic enquiry, professional analysis and ...entrepreneurial activity, backed by the globalisation of all investment activity, there is now an available body of material which forms the basis of this scholarly but practical summary of the new state of this art.The measurement, benchmarking, forecasting and quantitative management techniques applied to property investments are now compatible with those used in other asset classes, and advances in property research have at last put the ongoing debate about the role of real estate onto a footing of solid evidence.The truly global scope and authorship of this book is unique, and both authors here are singularly well qualified to summarise the impact and likely future of global innovations in property research and fund management. Between them, they have experienced three real estate crashes, and have observed at first hand the creation of the real estate debt and equity instruments that led to the global crisis of 2008-9.Global Property Investment: strategies, structure, decisionsoffers a unique perspective of the international real estate investment industry with:a close focus on solutions to real life investment problemsno excessive theoretical paddinga target of both students and professionalshighly qualified dual-nationality authorshipWith many cases, problems and solutions presented throughout the book, and a companion website used for deeper analysis and slides presentations (see below), this is a key text for higher-level real estate students on BSc, MSc, MPhil and MBA courses worldwide as well as for practising property professionals worldwide in fund management, investment and asset management, banking and real estate advisory firms.
The strengths of international investment law - above all, a strong focus on investor interests and an effective adjudication and enforcement system - also entail its weaknesses: it runs the danger ...of impeding or even sanctioning the host states' legitimate regulatory interests and ignoring other fields of public international law. How does it cope with public interest concerns such as human rights, the environment or the fight against corruption? At the heart of this book lies a fresh approach towards a general theory of such global public interest considerations in the investment realm. Delineating how and why those considerations matter, and why the current system does not accommodate them properly, Andreas Kulick fleshes out general principles and customary international law as defences the host state may raise against alleged investor rights infringements and promotes proportionality as the appropriate balancing mechanism.
Recent expansion of Chinese outward direct investment is analysed at two levels: at the aggregate level using Chinese Ministry of Commerce data and at the level of the individual FDI project using ...data compiled by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Project level analysis reveals wholly-owned projects are increasingly displacing joint ventures as the predominant mode of entry. Changes to the investment motivations are discernable in market-seeking FDI: with defensive and offensive FDI increasingly supplanting trade-related investment activity, and in strategic asset-seeking FDI: with improved access to foreign-owned technologies, brands, and distribution channels gaining importance.
Why do states block some foreign direct investment on national security grounds even when it originates from within their own security community? Government intervention into foreign takeovers of ...domestic companies is on the rise, and many observers find it surprising that states engage in such behavior not only against their strategic and military competitors, but also against their closest allies. Ashley Thomas Lenihan argues that such puzzling behavior can be explained by recognizing that states use intervention into cross-border mergers and acquisitions as a tool of statecraft to internally balance the economic and military power of other states through non-military means. This book tests this theory using quantitative and qualitative analysis of transactions in the United States, Russia, China, and fifteen European Union states.
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.
We investigate what drives responsible investment of European pension funds. Pension funds are institutional investors who assure the income of part of the population for a long period of time. ...Increasingly, stakeholders hold pension funds accountable for the non-financial consequences of their investments and many funds have engaged in responsible investing. However, it appears that there is a wide difference between pension funds in this respect. We investigate what determines pension funds' responsible investments on the basis of a survey of more than 250 pension funds in 15 European countries in 2010. We use multinomial logistic regression and find that especially legal origin of the country, ownership of the pension fund and fund size-related variables are to be associated with pension funds' responsible investment. For fund size, we establish a curvilinear relationship; especially the smallest and largest pension funds in the sample tend to engage with responsible investing.
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