Beware of Chinese FDI Statistics

If you think China receives an amazing amount of foreign direct investment, it’s because you’ve been seeing Chinese statistics. In a pair of posts, Madhukar Shukla points to evidence that China counts capital goods imports as FDI, reports “round-tripping” of money through Hong Kong as foreign investment, and generally doesn’t conform to OECD and IMF standards in this regard.

FDI changes ownership, not location

Interesting paper from 2000 that I encountered today:

In Interpreting Developed Countries’ Foreign Direct Investment (NBER Working Paper No.7810), NBER Research Associate Robert Lipsey suggests that flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) among developed countries, where most FDI occurs, have little to do with the location of production. To a large extent, they are changes in ownership of specific productive assets, presumably from less efficient to more efficient owners and managers. There may be no change in the geographical location of aggregate production or production in a particular industry.

WTO Dispute Settlement Database

I’m developing an interest in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. Here’s a data set that might help some in their research:

The dataset covers all 311 WTO disputes initiated through the official filing of a Request for Consultations at the WTO, from 1 January 1995 until July 31, 2004, and for these disputes it includes events occurring until February 28, 2005. For these disputes, the dataset covers exhaustively all stages of dispute settlement proceedings, from the moment when consultations are being requested to the eventual implementation of the rulings.

Should I blog while in grad school?

I was at an exciting seminar for the last five days without internet access, but I should have a few interesting items to post about in the near future.

I’m starting an M.Phil. in Economics in the fall. At this point, I plan to continue blogging while in grad school, because I think that it’s complementary to research activities. Studying might reduce my (already light) bogging activity, but I see no reason to give up Trade Diversion entirely. Is anyone aware of grad students that have opined about the value of blogging in comparison to the opportunity costs?

Will TRIPS impede a Doha deal?

Inside U.S. Trade reports that Brazil and India are sponsoring an amendment to the TRIPS agreement to bring it into conformity with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity by requiring disclosure of the origin of inventions derived from biological sources. It’s possible that India might tie this issue to market access in the Doha negotiations.

CGD “Evaluation Gap” Report

Lots of people will agree withthe general message of the Center for Global Development’s Evaluation Gap Working Group report: there is a dearth of rigorous evidence that independently evaluates the outcomes of development projects.

More controversial will be their recommendation: that a new international entity be formed to address the shortage of meaningful knowledge being produced about the success and failure of development enterprises. Would such a council truly be independent? How would it be funded?

The problem that the report addresses is familiar to many in the development field, but we have yet to identify a credible mechanism to overcome the knowledge gap. This document’s proposal can serve as a starting point for debate about the nature of such mechanisms.

GATT Article XXIV Compliant FTAs

Is anyone aware of a resource that details which CUs and FTAs have been found to be compliant with Article XXIV of the GATT? The best I have thus far is footnote seven in “Agriculture, GATT, and Regional Trade Agreements” by Sharon Sheffield:

As of January 1995, only 6 RTA’s [sic] have been found to be compliant with Article XXIV by unanimous agreement of the working party. Of these 6, only 2 are presumed to still be in operation (Czech-Slovak CU and the Caribbean Community and
Common Market).