What is the role of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in relation to private sector political risk insurers and financial institutions supporting the flow of foreign direct investment to emerging markets? This study provides an assessment of OPIC's various missions as a promoter of development, supporter of labor rights, protector of living standards in the United States, and advocate of environmental standards around the world. Drawing on the most recent evidence on the relationship between foreign direct investment and development and the impact of outward investment on the home economy, this study outlines a series of reforms that can make OPIC a more effective force in securing the benefits-and avoiding the hazards-of globalization in today's economy.

Under what conditions might a foreign acquisition of a US company constitute a genuine national security threat to the United States? What kinds of risks and threats should analysts and strategists on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), as well as their congressional overseers, be prepared to identify and deal with? This study looks at three types of foreign acquisitions of US companies that may pose a legitimate national security threat.The first is a proposed acquisition that would make the United States dependent on a foreign-controlled supplier of goods or services that are crucial to the functioning of the US economy and that this supplier might delay, deny, or place conditions on the provision of those goods or services. The second is a proposed acquisition that would allow the transfer to a foreign-controlled entity of technology or other expertise that might be deployed in a manner harmful to US national interests. The third potential threat is a proposed acquisition that would provide the capability to infiltrate, conduct surveillance on, or sabotage the provision of goods or services that are crucial to the functioning of the US economy. This study analyzes these threats in detail and considers what criteria are needed for a proposed foreign acquisition to be considered threatening. Ultimately, the vast majority of foreign acquisitions pose no credible threat to national security on these grounds.

What is the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on development? The answer is important for the lives of millions-if not billions-of workers, families, and communities in the developing world. The answer is crucial for policymakers in developing and developed countries, and in multilateral agencies. This important volume gathers together the cutting edge of new research on FDI and host country economic performance, and presents the most sophisticated critiques of current and past inquiries. The volume probes the limits of what can be determined from available evidence and from innovative investigative techniques. It presents new results, concludes with an analysis of the implications for contemporary policy debates, and proposed new avenues for future research.

This volume is the culmination of Institute investigations on the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and development. Today, more than one-third of world trade takes place in the form of intrafirm transactions-that is, trade among the various parts of the same corporate network spread across borders-and the bulk of technology is transferred within the confines of integrated international production systems. This means that FDI and the operations of multinational corporations have become central to the world economy at large. Nowhere is this more important than for developing countries. But as Theodore Moran argues in this new volume, FDI is not a single phenomenon. FDI has such different impacts in the extractive sector, infrastructure, manufacturing and assembly, and services-and presents such distinctive policy challenges-that each broad category of FDI must be treated on its own terms. Indeed, past studies that have aggregated all FDI flows together to try to find some unique relationship to host-country growth or welfare have led to unreliable substantive findings and, sometimes, mistaken policy conclusions. Moran examines each of the principal forms of FDI, extracts the best from previous analysis, and offers new findings and perspectives about how benefits from FDI in each sector can be enhanced and potential damages limited or eliminated.

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.

The rapid emergence of China as a major industrial power poses a complex challenge for global resource markets. Backed by the Chinese government, Chinese companies have been acquiring equity stakes in natural resource companies, extending loans to mining and petroleum investors, and writing long-term procurement contracts for oil and minerals. These activities have aroused concern that China might be "locking up" natural resource supplies, gaining "preferential access" to available output, and extending "control" over the world's extractive industries. On the demand side, Chinese appetite for vast amounts of energy and minerals puts tremendous strain on the international supply system. On the supply side, Chinese efforts to procure raw materials can either exacerbate or help solve the problems of high demand.Evidence from the 16 largest Chinese natural resource procurement arrangements shows that Chinese efforts-like Japanese deployments of capital and purchase agreements in the late 1970s through the 1980s-fall predominantly into categories that help expand, diversify, and make more competitive the global supplier system. Investigation of smaller projects indicates the 16 largest do not suffer from selection bias. However, Chinese attempts to exercise control over mining of rare earth elements may constitute a significant exception. The investigative focus of this analysis is deliberately narrow and precise, assessing the impact of Chinese resource procurement on the structure of the global supply base. The broader policy discussion in the concluding chapter raises other separate important issues, including the impact of Chinese resource procurement on rogue states, on authoritarian leadership, on civil wars, on corrupt payments and the deterioration of governance standards, and on environmental damage. Such effects may make patterns of Chinese resource procurement objectionable, on grounds quite apart from the debate about possible "control" of access on the part of China and Chinese companies.

It is not in the US interest to adopt tax and regulatory policies that would discourage global engagement by US multinational corporations (MNCs). Research presented in this book shows that the expansion of foreign affiliates of US MNCs is positively associated with more production, greater employment, higher exports, and more research and development (R&D) in the United States. These findings suggest that less investment abroad by US firms would weaken-not strengthen-the US economy. This analysis by no means implies that there are only winners and no losers from outward investment. Changing patterns of MNC investment, like changing patterns of technology and production more generally, contribute to job losses and dislocations for some workers and to new opportunities for others. To benefit the US economy and US workers most broadly, the United States will want to search for ways to strengthen the appeal of the United States as a base for the operations of international firms. High among the recommendations to accomplish this, the United States should adopt a territorial tax system, like the great majority of developed countries.

Parental Supervision amplifies the research Theodore Moran first presented in Foreign Direct Investment and Development (IIE 1998), assessing the opportunities and dangers that foreign direct investment may present to the growth of developing countries. Moran uses almost 50 percent more case studies than the earlier work to examine two types of foreign investments: (1) those that are tightly integrated into the parent firm's strategy and (2) those that are hindered by joint-venture and domestic-content requirements. The study is a comparison between these two types of foreign operations -- how backward linkages to local suppliers, operations of local affiliates, and the spillovers and externalities in the host economy differ from one type of foreign operation to the other.

In tightly integrated networks, not only is the performance of local affiliates superior and upgraded more continuously, but also, surprisingly, the backward linkages from the affiliates to local suppliers tend to be larger and more robust. Moran reviews contemporary efforts to measure the impact of simultaneous trade and investment liberalization on host country welfare, finding that the magnitude of both the benefits and the costs may be far greater than conventional wisdom suggests.

The share of the US economy controlled by foreign firms has tripled since the mid-1970s. The authors find that foreign firms appear to invest in the United States mainly to exploit their individual advantages in management and technology - the same reasons why American firms invest abroad - rather than because the United States is now running large deficits and has become a large debtor nation. Foreign-owned firms do not pay lower wages or shift good jobs and research and development away from the United States. Foreign-owned firms and especially Japanese firms do, however, have a marked tendency to import more of their production inputs. The authors warn that the President's new legislative authority to screen FDI on national security grounds could easily be abused, but endorse using this authority to ensure access to critical technologies or production processes including a requirement on some foreign firms to invest in the United States. They propose new international rules to minimize governmental interference and harmonize policies toward multinational firms.

Americans have long been ambivalent toward foreign direct investment in the United States. Foreign multinational corporations may be a source of capital, technology, and jobs. But what are the implications for US workers, firms, communities, and consumers as the United States remains the most popular destination for foreign multinational investment? Theodore H. Moran and Lindsay Oldenski find that foreign multinational firms that invest in the United States are, alongside US-headquartered American multinationals, the most productive and highest-paying segment of the US economy. These firms conduct more research and development, provide more value added to US domestic inputs, and export more goods and services than other firms in the US economy. The superior technology and management techniques they employ spill over horizontally and vertically to improve the performance of local firms and workers. As the United States wants not only to expand employment but also create well-paying jobs that reverse the falling earnings that many US workers and middle class families have suffered in recent decades, it is more important than ever to enhance the United States as a destination for multinational investors.