Revisiting the role of bilateral investment treaties in foreign direct investment
Abstract
This article revisits the role of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). It investigates, in particular, the institutional quality of the host countries, the number of cases brought for resolution, plus a more nuanced formulation of numbers of BITs, focusing on developing host countries. The analysis looks at more recent developments in BITs and incorporates economic freedom as a proxy of institutional quality of the host countries and considers the number of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in the BITs. We assume a non-linear relationship between BIT and FDI. Models are run using feasible generalized least squares (FGLS). Our new findings reveal that there is an optimum level of BITs in attracting FDI (higher and lower numbers do worse), constituting a re-appraisal of past analyses. Previous ISDS cases show a significant negative relationship with FDI. Economic Freedom has a strong positive and significant relationship with FDI/GDP, as previously found.Citation
Cusimano, A., Godwin, E.S., McKay, S. and Potočnik, M. (2024) Revisiting the role of bilateral investment treaties in foreign direct investment. Research in Applied Economics, 16(2).Publisher
Macrothink InstituteJournal
Research in Applied EconomicsAdditional Links
https://doi.org/10.5296/rae.v16i2.22030Type
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
© 2024 The Authors. Published by Macrothink Institute. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.5296/rae.v16i2.22030ISSN
1948-5433EISSN
1948-5433ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.5296/rae.v16i2.22030
Scopus Count
Collections
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/