The 1994 Benchmark Survey of U.S. Direct Investment Abroad was conducted by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to obtain complete and accurate data on U.S. direct investment abroad in 1994. Reporting in the survey was mandatory under the International Investment and Trade in Services Survey Act.
The Division of Science Resources Studies (SRS) of the National Science Foundation publishes the biennial report, National Patterns of R Resources. This report describes and analyzes current patterns of research and development (R) in the United States, in relation to the historical record and the reported R levels of other industrialized countries. For years in which the full report is not produced, current, annual statistics on national and international R trends are released in data updates like this one.
The combined domestic and foreign operations of nonbank U.S. multinational companies (MNC's) continued to grow at a relatively fast pace in 1996. The growth in three key measures of MNC operations–gross product, employment, and capital expenditures — exceeded the average annual growth rate for 1989–95. According to preliminary estimates from the annual survey of U.S. direct investment abroad conducted by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), worldwide gross product of U.S. MNC's (U.S. parents and majority–owned foreign affiliates combined) increased 7 percent, compared with a similar increase in 1995 and an average annual increase of 5 percent in 1989–95; employment increased 2 percent, compared with a 1–percent increase in 1995 and negligible growth in 1989–95; capital expenditures increased 5 percent, compared with a 7–percent increase in 1995 and an average annual increase of 4 percent in 1989–95.
The net international investment position of the United States—U.S. assets abroad less foreign assets in the United States—at yearend 1997 was a negative $1,223.6 billion with direct investment valued at the current cost of tangible assets, and it was a negative $1,322.5 billion with direct investment valued at the current market value of owners' equity (table A, chart 1). For both measures, the net positions were more negative in 1997 than they were in 1996.
Since the surge in foreign direct investment in the United States in the late 1980's, much attention has focused on the role of foreign-owned firms in the U.S. economy, particularly in manufacturing. A question that is frequently posed concerns the degree to which U.S. affiliates of foreign companies are integrated into the U.S. economy through their sourcing behavior and value-added activity. A related question is whether U.S. manufacturing affiliates in comparison with domestically owned firms are more oriented toward producing for the U.S. market or for their home-country and other foreign markets.
So declared Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali in 1994. Indeed, peacekeeping emerged in the post-Cold War period as the "most prominent U.N. activity." The organization was freed of the shackles placed upon it by superpower rivalry, that heretofore had rendered U.N. machinery inoperative in coping with local crises and was suddenly becoming "the center of international efforts to deal with unresolved problems of the past decades as well as the array of present and future issues." Between 1988 and 1993, more than a dozen new peacekeeping operations were launched, involving more than 70,000 military and civilian personnel for field operations, at an annual cost to the United Nations in excess of $3 billion.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, and International Organization
China's emergence begs a fresh look at power in world affairs—more precisely, at how the spread of freedom and the integration of the global economy, due to the information revolution, are affecting the nature, concentration, and purpose of power. Perhaps such a look could improve the odds of responding wisely to China's rise.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Government, and International Law