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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Direct Investment Political Geography United States Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Center for Global Development

1. Twenty Concrete Steps to Improve the United States' Commitment to Development

Author:
David Roodman and Cindy Prieto
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 22 rich countries on their dedication to policies that benefit poor nations. Looking beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid flows, the CDI measures national policies on aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology. The United States ranked 17th overall in 2009, strong in trade and security but less competitive in aid and environment. This memo describes how to boost the U.S. score and links to CGD materials with more detail.
Topic:
Development, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States

2. Criss-Crossing Globalization: Uphill Flows of Skill-Intensive Goods and Foreign Direct Investment

Author:
Arvind Subramanian and Aaditya Mattoo
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This paper documents an unusual and possibly significant phenomenon: the export of skills, embodied in goods, services or capital from poorer to richer countries. We first present a set of stylized facts. Using a measure which combines the sophistication of a country's exports with the average income level of destination countries, we show that the performance of a number of developing countries, notably China, Mexico and South Africa, matches that of much more advanced countries, such as Japan, Spain and USA. Creating a new combined dataset on FDI (covering greenfield investment as well as mergers and acquisitions) we show that flows of FDI to OECD countries from developing countries like Brazil, India, Malaysia and South Africa as a share of their GDP, are as large as flows from countries like Japan, Korea and the US. Then, taking the work of Hausmann et al (2007) as a point of departure, we suggest that it is not just the composition of exports but their destination that matters. In both cross-sectional and panel regressions, with a range of controls, we find that a measure of uphill flows of sophisticated goods is significantly associated with better growth performance. These results suggest the need for a deeper analysis of whether development benefits might derive not from deifying comparative advantage but from defying it.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Spain, and Korea