Doctoral Dissertation in Political Science: Political Competition and the Regulation of Foreign Direct Investment

政治学博士论文：政治竞争与外商直接投资监管

• 批准号: 0720041
• 负责人: Karen Remmer
• 金额: $ 1.18万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2008-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0720041&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Political; Science; Competition

The research analyzes the effect of regime type on the choice of policies regulating the entry and operation of foreign companies. Despite wide consensus that foreign direct investment (FDI) contributes to economic development, foreign investment regulations in developing countries range from open to very restrictive. Some countries welcome foreign firms with straightforward regulations and generous investment incentives. By contrast, other governments keep in place regulatory barriers and cumbersome requirements that deter the entry of foreign companies. This research investigates these policy differences. It draws upon economic insights into the distributional consequences of FDI and a theory of political coalitions in differ political regimes to argue that democratic countries are more likely to adopt policies that foster foreign investment than non-democratic regimes. The theoretical rationale is relatively straightforward: dictatorships, which have small winning coalitions, use government policies to cater to the interests of those controlling enough instruments of power to keep the leader in office. These are members of the business elite, the army, or the party leadership in one-party systems, and are likely to be part of the wealthier group in society. By contrast, democratic regimes, which must maintain the support of large winning coalitions, choose policies that benefit the majority of the population?owners of labor. Since FDI inflows benefit the owners of factors of production that complement foreign capital and hurt the owners of factors of production for which FDI is a substitute. This theoretical framework and a formal model make specific predictions about the effect of regime type on each of the three different dimensions of FDI regulation?the regulation of foreign entry, taxation, and incentive programs?and on variation among sectoral policies. This research tests these hypotheses on the basis of statistical analysis using an original dataset on postcommunist nations and the in-depth examination of two theoretically important cases, Croatia and Belarus. The research contributes to four bodies of literature in political science, as well as to the very limited pool of quantitative data on national policies regulating FDI. It involves an intensive effort to collect and code information on FDI restrictions, taxation, and incentives for 28 postcommunist countries between 1990-2005. This dataset is the first to code incentives for FDI, as well as the first to combine information on FDI restrictions, taxation, and incentives. The dataset will be instrumental for future research investigating determinants of policy choice and the effect of government regulations on economic outcomes. At the theoretical level, the project has implications for four strands of research. First, it advances the debate over the nexus between regime type and economic growth by emphasizing policy choice as a mediating variable between political institutions and economic performance. Second, the research challenges many conclusions in the literature on economic reform, which suggest that reform is promoted by authoritarian regimes capable of overriding the opposition of concentrated interests that stand to lose from policy change. In contrast, this project advances the proposition that democracies have an inherent bias toward adopting policies that benefit large and diffuse groups in society despite the organized opposition of special interests. Third, the project advances research on the political economy of postcommunist transformations by emphasizing the political sources of policy differences among transition countries. Fourth, the project contributes to the emerging literature on regime type and FDI by advancing a series of hypotheses about the impact of political institutions on policy choice and exploring those hypotheses on the basis of an original dataset of FDI regulations. Finally, the study will also interest policy-makers who shape countries'' policy framework regulating the entry and operations of foreign firms. The FDI regulations dataset will contain a wide range of detailed information that allows for an evaluation of strategic policy choices and best practices in this policy domain.

该研究分析了政权类型对规范外国公司进入和运营的政策选择的影响。尽管人们普遍认为外国直接投资（FDI）有助于经济发展，但发展中国家的外国投资法规范围从开放到非常限制。一些国家欢迎具有直接法规和慷慨投资激励措施的外国公司。相比之下，其他政府保持了阻止外国公司进入的监管障碍和繁琐的要求。这项研究调查了这些政策差异。它借鉴了对外国直接投资的分配后果的经济见解以及不同政治制度中的政治联盟理论，认为民主国家更有可能采用比非民主政权促进外国投资的政策。 理论上的理由相对简单：独裁统治，具有较小的获胜联盟，使用政府政策来满足那些控制足够的权力工具以使领导者任职的人的利益。这些是商业精英，军队或一党制度中党的领导的成员，并且很可能是社会上较富有的团体的一部分。相比之下，必须维持大型获胜联盟的支持的民主政权选择受益于大多数人口劳动所有者的政策。由于外国直接投资的流入使互补外国资本的生产要素的所有者受益，并损害了外国直接投资是替代品的生产要素的所有者。这个理论框架和正式模型对政权类型对外国直接投资监管的三个不同维度的影响做出了具体预测？对外国入境，税收和激励计划的调节以及部门政策之间的变化。这项研究根据统计分析，使用后共产主义国家的原始数据集以及对两个理论上重要的案例，克罗地亚和白俄罗斯进行了深入研究，对这些假设进行了检验。 这项研究为政治学文学的四个体系做出了贡献，以及有关调节外国直接投资的国家政策的量化数据库非常有限。它涉及一项密集的努力，并在1990 - 2005年之间为28个后共产主义国家收集FDI限制，税收和激励措施的努力。该数据集是第一个为FDI编码激励措施的数据集，也是第一个结合有关外国直接投资限制，税收和激励措施的信息的数据集。该数据集将有助于未来的研究调查政策选择的决定因素以及政府法规对经济成果的影响。 在理论层面上，该项目对四个研究的影响有影响。首先，它通过强调政策选择作为政治机构与经济绩效之间的中介变量，推动有关政权类型与经济增长之间联系的辩论。其次，该研究挑战了有关经济改革文献的许多结论，这些结论表明，改革是由能够推翻反对集中利益的专制政权来促进的，这些利益反对将因政策变化而失去。相比之下，该项目提出了以下主张，即民主国家在采用有组织的反对特殊利益的政策方面具有固有的偏见，这些政策有利于社会中的大型和漫视群体。第三，该项目通过强调过渡国家政策差异的政治来源，对后共产主义转型的政治经济学进行了研究。第四，该项目通过推进有关政治机构对政策选择的影响的一系列假设，促进了有关政权类型和外国直接投资的新兴文献，并根据FDI法规的原始数据集对这些假设进行了探索。 最后，这项研究还将引起对国家政策框架的政策框架的兴趣，以规范外国公司的进入和运营。 FDI法规数据集将包含广泛的详细信息，该信息允许评估该政策领域中的战略政策选择和最佳实践。