Competing for capital: The diffusion of bilateral investment treaties, 1960-2000
Competing for capital: The diffusion of bilateral investment treaties, 1960-2000
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DOI：
10.1017/s0020818306060279
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发表时间：
2006-09-01
影响因子：
7.8
通讯作者：
Simmons, Beth A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Elkins, Zachary;Guzman, Andrew T.;Simmons, Beth A.
在过去的45年里，双边投资协定已经成为鼓励和管理外国直接投资的最重要的国际法律机制。特别是在过去的二十年里，双边投资协定的扩散是惊人的。这些政府间条约通常赋予外国投资者广泛的权利，包括保护合同权利和在发生投资争端时进行国际仲裁的权利。我们如何解释双边投资协议的广泛采用？我们认为，blt的传播是由潜在东道国（通常是发展中国家）之间争夺外国直接投资的国际竞争推动的。我们根据这种解释提出了一系列假设，并开发了一套实证检验，这些检验依赖于经济竞争的网络度量，以及东道国签署blt的竞争压力的更多间接证据。有证据表明，当竞争对手签署双边投资协议时，潜在的东道国更有可能签署双边投资协议。我们发现一些证据表明强迫和学习发挥了作用，但较少支持基于模仿的文化解释。我们的主要发现是，blt的扩散与发展中国家之间争夺外国投资份额的竞争经济压力有关。在这一点上，我们对这种发展竞争的好处是不可知的。
Over the past forty-five years, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment. The proliferation of BITs during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal. These intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors, including protection of contractual rights and the right to international arbitration in the event of an investment dispute. How can we explain the widespread adoption of BITs? We argue that the spread of BlTs is driven by international competition among potential host countries-typically developing countries-for foreign direct investment. We propose a set of hypotheses that derive from such an explanation and develop a set of empirical tests that rely on network measures of economic competition as well as more indirect evidence of competitive pressures on the host to sign BlTs. The evidence suggests that potential hosts are more likely to sign BITs when their competitors have done so. We find some evidence that coercion and learning play a role, but less support for cultural explanations based on emulation. Our main finding is that the diffusion of BlTs is associated with competitive economic pressures among developing countries to capture a share of foreign investment. We are agnostic at this point about the benefits of this competition for development.