Essays on International Trade and Political Economy: The Importance of Incentives, Information, and Globalization

Chapter 1. This paper examines host governments' motivations for restricting ownership shares of multinational firms (MNFs) in foreign direct investment (FDI) projects. A host country has a profitable investment opportunity. The host government wants to capture the project's rent yet cannot observe the surplus created by the MNF. In contrast. a joint venture (JV) partner can observe the surplus. The host government can alleviate its informational constraints by using ownership restrictions to force a JV. This calls into question the wisdom of calls for ‘liberalizing' FDI flows by the elimination of domestic JV requirements.

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