This study was made in 2004 by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN- ESCWA). It provides an analysis of FDI policies in countries members or the ESCWA, and a review of the institutional frameworks that regulate FDI inflows and activities in those countries. It also includes a case study on the investment climate and policies in three member countries: Bahrain, Jordan and Yemen.
The document is a 108 pages PDF file.

Can markets be designed? How significant are the impediments to competition found in different sectors? And how do the politics of market design shape the policies that result? Creating Competitive Markets analyzes these questions across a broad range of sectors, including airlines, electricity, education, and pensions. The contributors mine developments in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan for evidence about when market design—conventionally known as deregulation—work more...

Selling off public assets to private operators can create a win-win situation for developing countries looking to unload expensive and unsustainable assets, while putting cash in government coffers. For investors seeking to capitalize on investment opportunities in frontier markets, privatization offers an important market entree. And with the growing trend toward business partnerships between the public and private sectors (so-called PPPs), the new face of privatization promises even greater be more...

There is widespread concern in many parts of Asia and Latin America that rising foreign investment to the People's Republic of China (PRC) is at the expense of investment and jobs in these economies.This paper examines this fear empirically using a regression model to explain foreign investment in these economies.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa by developing Asian economies is growing and has the potential to reach much higher levels, a joint report by UNCTAD and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says. Most such investment is now targeted at African natural resources, but the report contends that if appropriate policies are adopted more may be channelled into industry and manufacturing.

China's dramatic success in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) has raised concerns that it has success diverted FDI from other countries in Asia. The paper develops a new methodology to estimate crowding out, and we use it to investigate the impact of China's emergence on FDI flows to Asia using data from 14 Asian economies from 1984 to 2002. The results suggest that China did not have much impact on FDI to other countries. In particular, low-income economies, which compete with China fo more...

This paper develops the concept of potential FDI for each country, and uses its deviation from actual levels to estimate what policies can realistically be expected to achieve in terms of additional FDI. It also finds evidence that above a certain threshold, the importance of some policies for attracting FDI is distinctly different.

From abstract: "This paper suggests that the use of investment incentives focusing on foreign firms, although motivated in some cases from a theoretical point of view, is generally not an efficient way to raise national welfare.
The main reason is that the strongest theoretical motive for financial subsidies to inward FDI - spillovers of foreign technology and skills to local industry - is not an automatic consequence of foreign investment. The potential spillover benefits are realized only if more...

This paper uses regional panel data to investigate the mechanism of how
FDI has contributed to China’s regional development through quantifying regional
marketization level. It is found that FDI inflow generates a demonstration effect in
identifying regional market conditions for investment in fixed assets and hence affects
industrial location. In addition, its effects on regional export and regional income
growth varied across east, central and west China since the second half of the 199 more...

The Columbia Program on International Investment has supported the development of this Investor's Guide to Liberia (pdf).