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141. Drivers of Strategic Contestation in South America

Author:
Daniel Flemes and Leslie Wehner
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The politics of contestation on the part of secondary regional powers such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela towards Brazil as the regional leader oscillate between competition and cooperation, inasmuch as the South American region has one regional power and is a zone of negative peace without aggressive rivalries. The secondary powers use different tactics, which constitute their respective foreign policy strategies, to soft balance Brazil. These tactics include alliance building, entangling diplomacy, binding, and omni‐enmeshment. This paper identifies, first, the specific drivers of contestation towards Brazil and, second, why the secondary powers' foreign policy strategies vary in how they directly or indirectly contest the rise of Brazil at the regional and international levels. The paper demonstrates that in a regional order such as that of South America, which is characterized by relative stability, domestic drivers of contestation are key to explaining secondary powers' varied strategic responses to the regional power.
Topic:
Development, Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Regional Cooperation, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Japan and South America

142. Transformations on Whose Terms? Understanding the New EU-ACP Trade Relations from the Outside In

Author:
Ulrike Lorenz
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
In the past ten years, the long-standing trade relations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries have experienced radical transformations. The negotiations of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and seven regional groupings formed by the ACP countries have led to the EU being maneuvered into an unexpectedly weak position. For the first time, European negotiators had to substantially leave their pre-agreed negotiation path and positions due to the immense pressure from ACP countries, regional organizations, and non-state actors – and still have not been able to finalize negotiations that had initially been expected to only take five years until the end of 2007.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia/Pacific, and Caribbean

143. Hoping to Win, Expected to Lose: Theory and Lessons on Microenterprise Development

Author:
Dean Karlan, Ryan Knight, and Christopher Udry
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
We show how financial and managerial constraints impede experimentation and thus limit learning about the profitability of investments. Imperfect information about one's own type, but willingness to experiment to learn one's type, leads to short-run negative expected returns to investments, with some outliers succeeding. We find in an experiment that entrepreneurs invest randomized grants of cash and adopt advice from randomized grants of consulting services, but both lead to lower profits on average. In the long run, they revert back to their prior scale of operations. In a meta-analysis, results from 19 other experiments find mixed support for this theory.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Markets, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa

144. Agricultural Decisions after Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints

Author:
Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, Christopher Udry, and Isaac Osei-Akoto
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The investment decisions of small-scale farmers in developing countries are conditioned by the farmers' financial environment. Binding credit-market constraints and incomplete insurance can reduce investment in activities with high expected profits. We conducted several experiments in northern Ghana in which farmers were randomly assigned to receive cash grants, grants of or opportunities to purchase rainfall-index insurance, or a combination of the two. Demand for index insurance is strong, and insurance leads to significantly larger agricultural investment and riskier production choices in agriculture. The salient constraint to farmer investment is uninsured risk: when provided with insurance against the primary catastrophic risk they face, farmers are able to find resources to increase expenditure on their farms. Demand for insurance in subsequent years is strongly increasing in a farmer's own receipt of insurance payouts, and with the receipt of payouts by others in the farmer's social network. Both investment patterns and the demand for index insurance are consistent with the presence of important basis risk associated with the index insurance, and with imperfect trust that promised payouts will be delivered.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Markets, Food, and Foreign Direct Investment

145. Beyond the Millennium Development Goals Agreeing to a Post-2015 Development Framework

Author:
Alex Evans and David Steven
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This paper provides an overview of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their expected status in 2012; describes the background to, and options for, a post-2015 framework; and discusses how governments can best navigate the political challenges of agreeing to a new set of development goals.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
China

146. Better Rules for a Better Future: Regulating private sector agriculture

Author:
Maria Dolores Bernabe
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The ASEAN Investment Report for 2011 considers 2010 as an important year for the region in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. FDIs in ASEAN for the said year reached a record high of US 75.8 million dollars, nearly double the inflows in 2009. Included in these FDIs were private sector investments in agriculture, as Southeast Asia has become one of the most favored destinations of large-scale agricultural land investments.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Gender Issues, Food, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia

147. Transactions: A New Look at Services Sector Foreign Direct Investment in Asia

Author:
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
In this paper Kirkegaard presents new micro-level data consisting of individual greenfield investment projects and mergers and acquisitions as a source for detailed analysis of services sector cross-border investment flows among the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regional membership in Asia. The new transactional foreign direct investment (FDI) data are methodologically distinct from traditional BPM5-compliant FDI data but found to yield generally comparable aggregates, when compared with the latest available International Monetary Fund (IMF) data from the Comprehensive Direct Investment Survey for the ADB regional membership. The services sectors are found to receive considerably larger amounts of foreign investment, when compared with the Asian region's manufacturing and raw materials sectors. OECD countries account for roughly three-quarters of total recorded inward services sector FDI of about $2 trillion, relatively evenly split between the United States, the EU-27, and regional OECD-level-income countries. The presence of sizable regional "upward flowing" services sector investments into OECD-level-income economies is verified. Kirkegaard draws preliminary policy conclusions based on the new transactional FDI data results concerning prospects for regional services sector liberalization, threshold income levels for inward services sector FDI, upward-flowing regional services FDI, and preferred modes of services sector investments.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Asia

148. A China – US bilateral investment treaty: A template for a multilateral framework for investment?

Author:
Karl P. Sauvant and Huiping Chen
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
China is the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) host and home country among emerging markets, the United States among developed countries. As host countries, both seek to maintain policy space to pursue their own legitimate public policy objectives; as home countries, both seek to protect their investors' outward FDI. The development of their bilateral investment treaties (BITs) over the past decade reflects this: Chinese BITs have become more protective of investors, US ones more respectful of host country interests. If agreement is reached between both, it would provide a template for future investment agreements.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Treaties and Agreements, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States and China

149. Inward foreign direct investment: Does it enable or constrain domestic technology entrepreneurship?

Author:
Saurav Pathak, André Laplume, and Emanuel Xavier-Oliveira
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Whether or not foreign direct investment (FDI) is essential for domestic technological and economic development remains a contentious question. The controversy is illustrated by comparing the Celtic and Asian Tigers experiences from 1995 to 2000. Based on IMF and World Bank data in constant prices, Ireland and China averaged an annual growth rate of 8% in GDP per capita. However, FDI per capita grew at an average pace of 98% per year in Ireland, while in China it decreased by 1% -- absolute values averaged US$ 3,397 versus US$ 144, respectively. This suggests that, rather than a one-policy-fits-all approach, customized policies are more appropriate; and, if any generalization can be made, it should be based on a country's stage of economic development.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Israel and Asia

150. Evaluate Sustainable FDI to Promote Sustainable Development

Author:
John M. Kline
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Prescriptions to increase the role of FDI in promoting sustainable development generally focus on the macro level -- getting policies right and otherwise improving the investment climate. These steps are necessary but not sufficient. Effective implementation processes, especially at the micro project level, are also essential to encourage FDI that matches host country development needs and priorities.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment