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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Selected Works

2015

International Finance

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Study On Crime And Investment In Latin America And The Caribbean, Luisa Blanco, Christabel Dadzie, Coline Dony Oct 2015

Study On Crime And Investment In Latin America And The Caribbean, Luisa Blanco, Christabel Dadzie, Coline Dony

Luisa Blanco

Investment is a key determinant of economic growth. This relationship underpins the growth diagnostic and constraints analysis methodology used by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and United States Government Partnership for Growth initiative with the purpose of identifying the binding constraints to growth in a given country. Recent growth diagnostics undertaken for El Salvador (2011), Guatemala (2013), and Honduras (2013) find crime and citizen insecurity to be binding constraints to growth and investment in those countries (Acevedo et al. 2011; World Bank, 2012). The approaches taken in these growth diagnostic analyses are based on indirect proxies and shadow prices of …


Does Experience Matter For Patterns Of Expansion By U.S. Companies In Latin America And The Caribbean, Luisa Blanco, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster Oct 2015

Does Experience Matter For Patterns Of Expansion By U.S. Companies In Latin America And The Caribbean, Luisa Blanco, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster

Luisa Blanco

We describe expansion patterns by U.S. companies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) between 1980 and 2005 using a unique sample that utilizes country, industry and time-series information on firms’ investments. We build on previous research to explore the effect of experience on firms’ preference for equity commitment. Using the time series properties of our data, we examine the extent to which previous investments in the region influence firms’ expansion patterns. Our analysis includes the traditional determinants of entry mode choices such as firm-specific factors, market seeking factors, resource seeking factors, and country specific factors. Bivariate probit results indicate …


Tax Havens And Fdi Spillovers: Implications For Ldcs, Luisa Blanco, Cynthia Rogers Sep 2015

Tax Havens And Fdi Spillovers: Implications For Ldcs, Luisa Blanco, Cynthia Rogers

Luisa Blanco

Tax competition and spillover models offer ambiguous predictions concerning the economic impact of tax havens on non-tax havens. The implications of tax havens for less developed countries (LDCs), in particular, are not well understood and are little studied. This paper investigates the impact of tax havens on non-tax haven countries in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI). We investigate the importance of agglomeration effects by accounting for the level of FDI inflows as well as the role of geography by measuring proximity to the nearest tax haven. Our analysis yields several interesting findings. First, using panel data for 142 countries, …


Competition Between Tax Havens: Does Proximity Matter?, Luisa Blanco, Cynthia Rogers Sep 2015

Competition Between Tax Havens: Does Proximity Matter?, Luisa Blanco, Cynthia Rogers

Luisa Blanco

We study whether proximity to the nearest tax haven affects FDI and the number of American affiliates in a tax haven. Our results show that distance to the nearest tax haven is positively related to FDI inflows and the number of American affiliates in tax havens. These findings suggest that there is a harmful competition between tax havens. We also find evidence of positive spillovers: the number of American affiliates in a tax haven is positively related to the number of in its closest neighboring tax haven. This suggests the presence of agglomeration benefits given there is an affiliate in …


Do Tax Havens Really Flourish? Accounting For Endogeneity In Growth Regressions, Luisa Blanco, Cynthia Rogers Sep 2015

Do Tax Havens Really Flourish? Accounting For Endogeneity In Growth Regressions, Luisa Blanco, Cynthia Rogers

Luisa Blanco

That tax haven policies contribute to favorable economic growth in tax haven countries is commonly accepted. There is, however, minimal empirical evidence to substantiate this assertion and empirical investigations are subject to endogeneity bias. Using a sample of 155 countries from 1982 to 2003, we find that the standard tax haven variable is endogenous to the error term in a typical growth regression. We offer land area measures as valid instruments for tax haven status. Results based on two-stage least squares estimation with heteroskedastic standard errors and controls for initial conditions provide support for the claim that tax havens “flourish” …


The Impact Of Fdi On Co₂ Emissions In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Fidel Gonzalez, Isabel Ruiz Sep 2015

The Impact Of Fdi On Co₂ Emissions In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Fidel Gonzalez, Isabel Ruiz

Luisa Blanco

This paper uses panel Granger causality tests to study the relationship between sector specific FDI and CO2 emissions. Using a sample of 18 Latin American countries for the 1980-2007 period, we find causality running from FDI in polluting intensive industries (“the dirty sector”) to CO2 emissions per capita. This result is robust to controlling for other factors associated with CO2 emissions and using the ratio of CO2 emissions to GDP. For other sectors, we find no robust evidence that FDI causes CO2 emissions.


Equity Commitment Under Uncertainty: A Hierarchical Model Of Real Option Entry Mode Choices, Luisa Blanco, Rossitza Wooster, W. Charles Sawyer Sep 2015

Equity Commitment Under Uncertainty: A Hierarchical Model Of Real Option Entry Mode Choices, Luisa Blanco, Rossitza Wooster, W. Charles Sawyer

Luisa Blanco

We develop a real option hierarchical model of entry mode choice and test predictions using a sample of US companies in Latin America and the Caribbean between 1980 and 2005. Probit results indicate that the choice between a real option non-equity mode and equity commitment is influenced by previous acquisition experience, R&D and advertising intensities, and country risk. The choice of the more flexible real option JV mode over WOEs is positively related to greater firm size and market-to-book ratio in countries with better infrastructure. In contrast, greater marketing intensity and lower country risk encourage WOEs.


The Impact Of Spatial Interdependence On Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco Sep 2015

The Impact Of Spatial Interdependence On Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco

Luisa Blanco

This analysis considers whether spatial interdependence is an important determinant of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America. Two types of spatial interdependence are explored: 1) surrounding market potential and 2) spatial autocorrelation of FDI. Using a sample of 17 Latin American countries, with observations from 1986 to 2006, we find that spatial interdependence matters for world net FDI in the region. Surrounding market potential has a positive effect on FDI of significant magnitude, but there is no evidence that FDI is spatially autocorrelated. Other contributors to FDI in this analysis include governance, specifically control of corruption, and exports of …


Crime, Institutions And Sector-Specific Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Isabel Ruiz, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster Sep 2015

Crime, Institutions And Sector-Specific Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Isabel Ruiz, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster

Luisa Blanco

In this article, we explore how crime and institutions affect the flow of capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Latin American and Caribbean countries in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors during the 1996-2010 period. We use three different variables related to violent crime: homicides, crime victimization, and an index of organized crime. We find that there is a correlation between the institutional and crime variables, where the significance of institutional variables tends to disappear when the crime variables are added to the model. We find that higher crime victimization and organized crime are associated with …