The effect of institutional quality on trade and investment [electronic resource]
說明
126 p
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-09, Section: A, page: 3491
Chair: Deborah Swenson
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Davis, 2004
Recent literature published by the IMF and others highlight institutions as the major determinant in the success of the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU), arguing that macroeconomic variables are overshadowed by the power of governmental institutions. Chapter 2 contributes to the debate regarding the power of macroeconomic variables and the power of the rule of law to encourage foreign direct investment (FDI). Using host and source country data, and survey results from foreign firms in the region, I find that it is the economic landscape that is most influential in determining the level of FDI in transition countries. When controlling for the economic landscape, corruption and the functioning of the judiciary are important but taxes and regulations no longer matter
The countries of CEE and the FSU are currently experiencing a dramatic reorientation of trade as their firms increasingly face west. Chapter 3 finds that healthy institutions increase the probability that a firm will export. Firms with different levels of productivity are more or less affected by some aspects of public policy but both high and low productivity firms are more likely to export when there are low levels of corruption and honest courts. Policy variables are important in this process of reorientation from a command and control economic system to a free market type economy
In chapter 4, our empirical strategy poses the question: did the hegemons of Britain in the prewar period and the United States in the interwar period send larger capital flows to the countries they traded more with, all else equal? All else equal will mean that we include controls for level of development, colonial status, and currency regime. Various studies have found these factors to be important determinants of trade and financial flows in these eras, although a simultaneous model of both trade and finance has not previously been attempted in the literature. Our conclusion is that trade and finance did tend to move together, at least in the case of major capital exporters from the 19th century up to World War Two
