Trading Spaces: Foreign Direct Investment Regulation, 1970–2000(Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

This book is the first comprehensive study of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization. Political economy FDI research has long focused on how host-country politics influence the supply of FDI, or how firms choose to invest. By contrast, this book focuses on the politics of FDI demand: the sources of citizens' preferences for FDI inflows and countries' foreign ownership restrictions. Professor Sonal S. Pandya's theory of FDI regulation identifies how FDI redistributes income within host countries, raises local wages, and creates competition for local firms. Empirical tests also emphasize the central role of multinational cooperations' productive assets in shaping the politics of FDI. These tests feature an original dataset of annual country-industry foreign ownership regulations that spans more than one hundred countries during the period 1970–2000. This book highlights the economic and political foundations of global economic integration and supplies the tools to understand the growing economic conflicts between advanced economics and large emerging markets such as China and India.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: political economy of FDI regulation in the twentieth century; 2. FDI: why companies invest and countries restrict; 3. Why restrict FDI? Weakening MNCs' control over firm-specific assets; 4. Individual preferences for FDI inflows: evidence from public opinion data; 5. Democratization and cross-national FDI liberalization, 1970–2000; 6. Export vs market-oriented FDI: sources of cross-industry variation; 7. Conclusion: FDI in the twenty-first century.

About the Author :
Sonal S. Pandya is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. She specializes in international relations with a focus on the interdisciplinary study of international political economy. Her research interests include the regulation of foreign direct investment, the role of international politics in consumer marketing strategies, and the international movement of intangible productive assets including intellectual property and skills. She is the author of numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals including International Organization and International Studies Quarterly. She received the American Political Science Association's 2009 Mancur Olson Award for the Best Dissertation in Political Economy. Professor Pandya received her PhD from Harvard University, Massachusetts in 2008. She has been a fellow of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University, New Jersey.