Doctoral Dissertation in Political Science: Political Competition and the Regulation of Foreign Direct Investment

研究分析了制度类型对规制外资企业进入和经营政策选择的影响。尽管普遍认为外国直接投资有助于经济发展，但发展中国家的外国投资规定从开放到非常限制不等。一些国家用直截了当的规章制度和慷慨的投资激励措施欢迎外国公司。相比之下，其他国家的政府设置了监管障碍和繁琐的要求，阻止外国公司进入。本研究调查了这些政策差异。它利用对外国直接投资分配后果的经济学见解和不同政治制度下的政治联盟理论，论证民主国家比非民主国家更有可能采取促进外国投资的政策。理论上的理由相对简单：拥有小型获胜联盟的独裁政权，利用政府政策迎合那些掌握足够权力工具的人的利益，使领导人继续执政。这些人是商业精英、军队或一党制政党领导层的成员，很可能是社会中较富裕群体的一部分。相比之下，民主政权必须保持大型获胜联盟的支持，选择有利于大多数人的政策。劳动力的所有者。因为FDI流入有利于补充外资的生产要素所有者，而损害了FDI作为替代的生产要素所有者。这一理论框架和形式模型对制度类型对FDI监管三个不同维度的影响做出了具体预测。对外资进入、税收和激励计划的监管？以及部门政策之间的差异。本研究在统计分析的基础上检验了这些假设，使用了一个关于后共产主义国家的原始数据集，并对克罗地亚和白俄罗斯两个理论上重要的案例进行了深入研究。这项研究为政治科学的四个文献体系作出了贡献，也为管理外国直接投资的国家政策提供了非常有限的数量数据。它涉及在1990年至2005年期间为28个后共产主义国家收集和编码有关外国直接投资限制、税收和激励措施的信息。该数据集是第一个对外国直接投资激励进行编码的数据集，也是第一个将外国直接投资限制、税收和激励信息结合起来的数据集。该数据集将有助于未来研究政策选择的决定因素以及政府法规对经济结果的影响。在理论层面上，该项目涉及四个研究领域。首先，它通过强调政策选择作为政治制度和经济绩效之间的中介变量，推进了关于制度类型和经济增长之间关系的辩论。其次，该研究挑战了经济改革文献中的许多结论，这些结论表明，改革是由威权政权推动的，这些威权政权能够压倒集中利益的反对，而集中利益会因政策变化而受损。相比之下，本项目提出了一个命题，即民主国家有一种固有的偏见，即尽管有特殊利益集团的有组织的反对，但它还是倾向于采取有利于社会中庞大而分散的群体的政策。第三，该项目通过强调转型国家之间政策差异的政治来源，推进了后共产主义转型的政治经济学研究。第四，该项目提出了一系列关于政治制度对政策选择影响的假设，并在FDI法规原始数据集的基础上对这些假设进行了探索，从而为有关制度类型和FDI的新兴文献做出了贡献。最后，这项研究也将使那些制定国家管理外国公司进入和经营的政策框架的政策制定者感兴趣。外国直接投资法规数据集将包含广泛的详细信息，可用于评估该政策领域的战略政策选择和最佳实践。

The research analyzes the effect of regime type on the choice of policies regulating the entry and operation of foreign companies. Despite wide consensus that foreign direct investment (FDI) contributes to economic development, foreign investment regulations in developing countries range from open to very restrictive. Some countries welcome foreign firms with straightforward regulations and generous investment incentives. By contrast, other governments keep in place regulatory barriers and cumbersome requirements that deter the entry of foreign companies. This research investigates these policy differences. It draws upon economic insights into the distributional consequences of FDI and a theory of political coalitions in differ political regimes to argue that democratic countries are more likely to adopt policies that foster foreign investment than non-democratic regimes. The theoretical rationale is relatively straightforward: dictatorships, which have small winning coalitions, use government policies to cater to the interests of those controlling enough instruments of power to keep the leader in office. These are members of the business elite, the army, or the party leadership in one-party systems, and are likely to be part of the wealthier group in society. By contrast, democratic regimes, which must maintain the support of large winning coalitions, choose policies that benefit the majority of the population?owners of labor. Since FDI inflows benefit the owners of factors of production that complement foreign capital and hurt the owners of factors of production for which FDI is a substitute. This theoretical framework and a formal model make specific predictions about the effect of regime type on each of the three different dimensions of FDI regulation?the regulation of foreign entry, taxation, and incentive programs?and on variation among sectoral policies. This research tests these hypotheses on the basis of statistical analysis using an original dataset on postcommunist nations and the in-depth examination of two theoretically important cases, Croatia and Belarus. The research contributes to four bodies of literature in political science, as well as to the very limited pool of quantitative data on national policies regulating FDI. It involves an intensive effort to collect and code information on FDI restrictions, taxation, and incentives for 28 postcommunist countries between 1990-2005. This dataset is the first to code incentives for FDI, as well as the first to combine information on FDI restrictions, taxation, and incentives. The dataset will be instrumental for future research investigating determinants of policy choice and the effect of government regulations on economic outcomes. At the theoretical level, the project has implications for four strands of research. First, it advances the debate over the nexus between regime type and economic growth by emphasizing policy choice as a mediating variable between political institutions and economic performance. Second, the research challenges many conclusions in the literature on economic reform, which suggest that reform is promoted by authoritarian regimes capable of overriding the opposition of concentrated interests that stand to lose from policy change. In contrast, this project advances the proposition that democracies have an inherent bias toward adopting policies that benefit large and diffuse groups in society despite the organized opposition of special interests. Third, the project advances research on the political economy of postcommunist transformations by emphasizing the political sources of policy differences among transition countries. Fourth, the project contributes to the emerging literature on regime type and FDI by advancing a series of hypotheses about the impact of political institutions on policy choice and exploring those hypotheses on the basis of an original dataset of FDI regulations. Finally, the study will also interest policy-makers who shape countries'' policy framework regulating the entry and operations of foreign firms. The FDI regulations dataset will contain a wide range of detailed information that allows for an evaluation of strategic policy choices and best practices in this policy domain.