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This paper aims to examine the impact of host country corruption on foreign direct investment (FDI) from China to developing countries in Africa. With the opposing arguments that corruption is detrimental to or instrumental in FDI and mixed empirical evidence, this paper contributes to the literature by providing new evidence on the issue. Additionally, little research has been done on the impact of corruption on FDI made by developing country multinationals to developing countries. This paper fills a void in this area.

Based on the published literature, as well as China and Africa contexts, the authors develop hypotheses that host countries with low corruption receive more FDI and resource-seeking investments weaken the relationship. The annual stock of Chinese FDI in 35 African countries, host country corruption data and other control variables from 2007 to 2015 are collected. Feasible generalized least squares models are used to test the hypotheses. Additional robustness tests are also conducted.

The findings support the hypotheses. Specifically, Chinese investors make more investments in host countries with low corruption except for resource-seeking investments in resource-rich host counties. The results are statistically significant accounting for various control variables. The results of the robustness tests show that the main findings are robust.

First, this study provides new evidence on the impact of corruption on FDI. Second, this study also fills a void by examining FDI from a developing country, China to other developing countries in Africa. Finally, this study also has a practical implication for Chinese multinationals investing in Africa.

An investigation of multinational corporations (MNCs) integration of the concept of community participation into the factors of needs and expectations revealed a significant difference amongst MNCs’ strategic choice in their tourism market development in those African host countries. The findings identified only 16% of the participating MNCs integrated the concept of community participation. The integrators increased in growth more than the non-integrators of concept of community participation. It is concluded that MNCs need to realize that strategy involves forecasting and understanding the business environmental factors, planning on which applicable strategy to choose and implementing a strategy that is rewarding to both the corporation and the host community with minimum risks.

This study aims to analyse the efficiency effects of institutional distance on Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa.

The study utilised the true fixed-effect stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model. Data from 2003 to 2016 (14 years) were acquired from 42 targeted African countries, which are included in the analysis.

The results reveal that FDI flow efficiency can be maximised with a high institutional distance between China and African countries. Contrariwise, comparable institutional distance, measured by the rule of law, regulatory quality and government effectiveness between the host and home countries, reflected a significant positive impact for Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDIs), indicating Chinese MNEs can invest directly in a country with comparable institutional characteristics.

There have been limited exceptional studies that assessed the effect of institutional distance between emerging countries. However, none of these studies investigated the effect of institutional distance between China and Africa at a national level. Using the advantage of the SFA model, this study assesses the efficiency effects of institutional distance between the host and home country.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of natural resources, market size and five major institutional factors (voice and accountability; political stability and absence of violence; regulatory quality; rule of law and control of corruption) on Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa.

This study uses regression analysis on panel data across 22 countries for the period 2008-2014.

Natural resources did not play a significant role in attracting Chinese investments, but market size did. Among the institutional factors, only voice and accountability had a significant and positive effect on attracting Chinese FDI; the effects of rule of law and control of corruption were not significant and political stability and regulatory quality had a significant and negative effect.

Chinese investment in Africa is only a recent phenomenon, and is growing rapidly; further studies should examine factors that are unique to the context such as bilateral political link.

African countries that are struggling with improving their poor institutional quality in the short term could effectively attract Chinese investment by reducing investor psychic distance, e.g. establishing a closer political link with China. Nevertheless, in the long term, measures of improving institutional quality are important.

This study reveals for the first time that what attracts Chinese investment is market size rather than natural resources, and different institutional factors of an African country show varying effects on attracting Chinese FDI.

Nowadays, foreign capital inflow (FCI) is considered as a catalyst for economic development and an important source of transferring technology and foreign exchange earnings from developed to developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to study, first, the impact of different forms of FCIs, namely, foreign direct investment (FDI), personal remittances (PR) and official development assistant (ODA) on economic growth on 26 top African countries; and, second, which of them is more effective on economic growth of the studied countries. The results of this paper are very important for host governments’ policy and help them to design their economic plans to absorb the suitable foreign inflow.

The paper uses Pooled Mean Group (PMG) econometric technique to estimate the heterogeneous panels over the period 1992–2016.

The results of the study show that all three forms of FCIs have positive and significant effects on economic growth in the long and short run. However, the PR had the most effect on economic growth in the long and short run. The study suggests that the governments should design and implement appropriate fiscal, monetary and trade policies in order to create and improve an enabling environment to attract FCIs as a supplementary source of domestic investment.

The research limitations of this paper are as follows: data sets of FDI, PR and ODA were available not for all African countries; and, data sets that were available were of before the year 1992. Thus, the research is done for the African countries which had the data sets after the year 1992.

The result of this paper indicates the impact of each FDI, PR and ODA in economic growth. So, countries can take more attentions to each of them on economic planning.

FCIs are one of the important external source of exchange for each country. So, the study of importance of each of them is necessary for economic planning.

Most of the previous studies have examined the impact of three different forms of FCIs on economic growth separately, on different countries and regions and using various models and econometric techniques. One of the contributions of this paper is focused on the impacts of FDI, PR and ODA on economic growth separately and simultaneously in 26 top recipient African countries and using the PMG technique which is an advanced econometrical estimation and studied less about it. The other contribution of this research is the comparison of the impact of different FCIs on economic growth, and it is very important for governments’ economic policy.

Given the inconclusive evidence in the literature on the impact of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, as well as dearth of literature on this subject matter as regards West Africa and the European Union (EU), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which BITs and preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) triggered foreign investment flows particularly between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries and the EU.

Trend analysis was used to trace the link between FDI and BITs, while panel regression models were used to investigate the impact of BITs on FDI during 1980‐2010.

Econometric results indicate that, as in most previous studies, BITs have strong positive impact on FDI in West Africa, with this impact significant at a higher level (1 per cent) for FDI flow than stock (5 per cent). The impact of BITs on FDI is significant even with the state of internal factors (such as capital account liberalisation, trade openness, high inflation rate and poor governance) in West African countries. The findings suggest that in the absence of BITs, West African countries would have suffered adversely from poor FDI inflows given their poor macroeconomic stability and governance. On the contrary, the PTIAs did not have significant impact on both FDI flows and stock. The results also show that FDI inflow to West Africa is both market and resources seeking.

Sensitivity analysis may not have been sufficient. For instance, not tested was the impact of the signalling effect of BIT, as well as other vertical FDI such as those from the USA.

The implication of the findings is that West Africa countries need to design policies and programmes that will enable them to maximise the technological spill‐over from FDI in order not to be perpetual suppliers of primary products and purchasers of manufactured goods. Further, they have to maintain macroeconomic stability and good governance. They need to understand the type of provisions in the BITs that constituent states signed and compare with the provisions of the PTIAs, with a view to discerning what is responsible for the superior response of FDI to BITs.

Given the absence of literature on the impact of BITs on FDI flows between West Africa and EU, it becomes imperative to investigate this issue with a view to motivating the investment component of the EPA, as investment is one of the Singapore issues that were removed from WTO's Doha Round.

This paper aims to examine the potential for “triangular cooperation” between investment partners from Australia, China and host African nations to contribute to the economic development in Africa.

The paper discusses a number of complementarities between Australian and Chinese investors in mining, agriculture, energy, research and education and finance – sectors vital to Africa’s future development. These complementarities are examined in light of recent development studies on the benefits of triangular cooperation and recent literature examining links between foreign direct investment (FDI) policy and economic development.

The paper concludes that there is much to be gained by making the most of the existing and potential synergies between Australian, Chinese and local investors in African settings.

The implications of this paper are, first, that African nations should keep the benefits of triangular cooperation in mind when designing FDI policies and, second, that Australian and Chinese investors should be more willing to explore potential investment partner synergies when investing in Africa. The paper also suggests an agenda for future research into how good design of FDI policies might best promote healthy economic development in African nations.

Australian and Chinese companies should be more willing to explore potential avenues for cooperation when investing in Africa, while African governments should be more mindful of how rules and policies can maximise the local benefits of FDI.

African governments should be more mindful of the quality, rather than the quantity of FDI when drafting relevant laws and policies.

The value of the paper is in applying the concept of “triangular cooperation” to direct investment. The paper also provides an original focus on Australia-China investment synergies in African settings.

This study aims to estimate the impact of refugee inflows on host countries’ entrepreneurial rates. The refugee crisis led to an increased scientific and public policy interest in the impact of refugee inflows on host countries. One important perspective of such an impact, which is still underexplored, is the impact of refugee inflows on host countries entrepreneurial rates. Given the high number of refugees that flow to some countries, it would be valuable to assess the extent to which such countries are likely to reap the benefits from increasing refugee inflows in terms of (native and non-native) entrepreneurial talent enhancement.

Resorting to dynamic (two-step system generalized method of moments) panel data estimations, based on 186 countries over the period between 2000 and 2019, this study estimates the impact of refugee inflows on host countries’ entrepreneurial rates, measured by the total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate and the self-employment rate.

In general, higher refugee inflows are associated with lower host countries’ TEA rates. However, refugee inflows significantly foster self-employment rates of “medium-high” and “high” income host countries and host countries located in Africa. These results suggest that refugee inflows tend to enhance “necessity” related new ventures and/ or new ventures (from native and non-native population) operating in low value-added, low profit sectors.

This study constitutes a novel empirical contribution by providing a macroeconomic, quantitative assessment of the impact of refugee from distinct nationalities on a diverse set of host countries' entrepreneurship rates in the past two decades resorting to dynamic panel data models, which enable to address the heterogeneity of the countries and deal with the endogeneity of the variables of the model.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the potential role that Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) could play to enhance development in African economies, both as recipient and home countries.

Methodology – We use hand collected data on the universe of Africa's SWFs, their sizes and transparency, and reporting scores to provide a landscape of these funds. We also focus on a sample of investments in Africa made both by African and foreign SWFs to describe the type of interventions these vehicles have been making on the continent.

Findings – Our analysis shows that African SWFs are small, suffer from poor governance, and are mainly focused on stabilizing local economies. This suggests that their potential role as long-term institutional investors to foster economic growth is likely to be limited if current practices are maintained. On the other hand, foreign SWFs are increasingly interested in Africa and are poised to play a bigger role in supporting the continent's growth if the right strategies are implemented.

Social implications – The chapter identifies opportunities that Africa offers to SWFs as well as the challenges that need to be addressed in order to enhance SWFs' role in supporting the continent's development.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter provides the first comprehensive landscape of African SWFs while also describing their interventions. It also uses an original data set to describe the geographic and sector distributions of foreign SWFs investments in Africa.

China's Confucius Institutes (CIs) have been under increasing scrutiny in the West while their development in Africa has been steady and strong. This article aims to examine the establishment, operation and effects of this institute in Africa, and discuss its role in a wider context of education, development and China's foreign policy towards Africa.

This empirical research is a case study of China's Confucius Institutes in Africa. Fieldwork data was collected in China and seven CIs in four African countries.

This research found that the CIs were not just Chinese language and culture promotion organisations in Africa. Rather, they played a deeper and more profound role in training local individuals, involving them in different forms of Chinese presence in Africa and linking their own personal development with the rise of China. In that sense, this article argues that the CI plays a positive role in promoting China's soft power and national interest in Africa. This article also highlights the problems of the institute's operational mode, and casts doubt on some aspects of its future development.

This research systematically examines the establishment, operation and effects of the CIs in Africa, in an attempt to understand the real role of this institute in China's foreign policy towards Africa and demonstrate the uniqueness of the situation of the CIs in Africa.