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The Importance Of Bits For Foreign Direct Investment And Political Risk Insurance: Revisiting The Evidence, Lauge Skovgaard Poulsen

Lauge N. Skovgaard Poulsen

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are typically presented as vital risk-mitigating instruments providing foreign investors with “credible commitments” that their assets will not be expropriated, discriminated against, or otherwise maltreated post-establishment. Accordingly, developing countries wanting to attract foreign investment should become more attractive destinations for multinationals when signing the treaties. A great number of studies and surveys indicate, however, that the vast majority of multinationals do not appear to take BITs into account when determining where - and how much - to invest abroad. Apart from reviewing such evidence, this paper discusses the feedback from a series of interviews. Firstly, BIT-negotiators …