Although global flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) have not recovered since the 2008 financial crisis, flows to developing countries have continued to register a very modest growth. But what is the impact of these FDI inflows on the recipient developing economies? This paper reviews the existing evidence to produce eight messages that could help development professionals understand the implications of FDI inflows for developing countries.
In principle, firms in developing countries benefit from the fact that advanced technologies and products have already been developed in industrialized countries and can simply be adopted, a process often referred to as industrial upgrading.
Special economic zones (SEZs) or industrial parks can be an effective instrument to promote industrialization and structural transformation, but only when implemented properly in the right context. More than 50 years of experience with special export zones yields a mixed picture.
Molina and Tanaka (2020) examine whether globalization promotes female empowerment by improving the jobs available to women. Previous work has documented that exporting causally improved working conditions at predominantly female garment factories in Myanmar.
The goal of this paper was to estimate an empirical hazard function of firms by determining the impact of selected firm characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity on a firm‟s survival time prior to exit during a period of de factor trade liberalization.