This volume gathers the cutting edge of new research on foreign direct investment and host country economic performance, and presents the most sophisticated critiques of current and past inquiries. It presents new results, concludes with an analysis of the implications for contemporary policy debates, and proposed new avenues for future research.

Provides a comprehensive review of the issues related to the impact of FDI on development as well as to the policies needed to maximise the benefits.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown dramatically and is now the largest and most stable source of private capital for developing countries and economies in transition, accounting for nearly 50 percent of all those flows. Meanwhile, the growing role of FDI in host countries has been accompanied by a change of attitude, from critical wariness toward multinational corporations to sometimes uncritical enthusiasm about their role in the development process. What are the most valuable benefits and opportunities that foreign firms have to offer? What risks and dangers do they pose? Beyond improving the micro and macroeconomic "fundamentals" in their own countries and building an investment-friendly environment, do authorities in host countries need a proactive (rather than passive) policy toward FDI? In one of the most comprehensive studies on FDI in two decades, Theodore Moran synthesizes evidence drawn from a wealth of case literature to assess policies toward FDI in developing countries and economies in transition. His focus is on investment promotion, domestic content mandates, export-performance requirements, joint-venture requirements, and technology-licensing mandates. The study demonstrates that there is indeed a large, energetic, and vital role for host authorities to play in designing policies toward FDI but that the needed actions differ substantially from conventional wisdom on the topic. Dr. Moran offers a pathbreaking agenda for host governments, aimed at maximizing the benefits they can obtain from FDI while minimizing the dangers, and suggests how they might best pursue this agenda.

Is foreign direct investment good for development? Moving beyond the findings of his previous book Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Development? (CGD and IIE, 2005), Theodore H. Moran presents surprisingly good --and startlingly bad --news. The good news highlights how foreign direct investment can make a contribution to development significantly more powerful and more varied than conventional measurements indicate. The bad news reveals that foreign direct investment can also distort host economies and polities with consequences substantially more adverse than critics and cynics have imagined. This book rigorously examines the principal controversies and debates about FDI in manufacturing and assembly, extractive industries, and infrastructure, in light of new evidence and analysis. Written in engaging prose, it identifies how developed and developing countries, multilateral lending agencies, and civil society can work in concert to harness foreign direct investment to promote the growth and welfare of developing countries.

We test the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in a cross-country regression framework, utilizing data on FDI flows from industrial countries to 69 developing countries over the last two decades. Our results suggest that FDI is an important vehicle for the transfer of technology, contributing relatively more to growth than domestic investment. However, the higher productivity of FDI holds only when the host country has a minimum threshold stock of human capital. In addition, FDI has the effect of increasing total investment in the economy more than one for one, which suggests the predominance of complementarity effects with domestic firms.

Establishing an investment promotion agency has become a central part of most countries' development strategies. Today there are more than 150 investment promotion agencies worldwide. Yet very little is known about what these agencies have been really doing, notably in emerging countries, and whether they have been effective in influencing investors' decisions. Using data from a new survey on 58 countries, Morisset shows that greater investment promotion is associated with higher cross-country foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, on top of the influence of the country's investment climate and market size. But this result has to be qualified on several counts. First, the effectiveness of the agency depends on the country's environment in which it operates. An agency in a poor investment climate is less effective at attracting investment. Second, the scope of activities that an agency undertakes influences its performance. Morisset's empirical analysis indicates that agencies devoting more resources on policy advocacy are more effective because such activity is not only beneficial to foreign investors but also to domestic investors. In contrast, investment generation or targeting strategies appear expensive and risky, especially in countries with poor investment climates. Finally, certain internal characteristics of the agencies are associated with greater effectiveness. The agencies that have established reporting mechanisms to the country's highest policymakers (the president or prime minister) or to the private sector have been systematically more efficient at attracting foreign direct investment. Such institutional links are crucial because they contribute to strengthen the government's commitment as well as reinforce the agency's credibility and visibility in the business community.

In this cutting-edge analysis of foreign direct investment (FDI), Moran--one of the acknowledged experts in this area--questions traditional econometric measures of foreign direct investment flows, identifies flaws in past research, elaborates on how the latest research has moved More ... into new territory, and provides a first look at what new research has uncovered. Moran concentrates on FDI in the manufacturing and assembly sector, and discusses if FDI in manufacturing raises the productivity of host country economic activities, if FDI makes the host more competitive in new sectors, and generates externalities that benefit local firms and workers. He provides important new data on the kinds of activities, types of jobs, and level of wages associated with multinational manufacturing investment. This volume dissects the market failures associated with the contemporary idea of development as selfdiscovery, and addresses the tricky question of whether to provide incentives for FDI. In addition, he provides a novel reassessment of the debate about FDI crowding-out or crowding-in domestic investment. This book provides insight and lessons for developing and developed countries, NGOs, the corporate responsibility community, and multilateral lending institutions