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Companies resident in the United Kingdom suffer from a very tight set of restrictions on exchange control. The rules regarding trading are quite different from those applied to investment. Various types of investment are treated differently. The following paper describes the more important aspects of the UK exchange control regulations, including the rules for remitting foreign profits and the investment currency market. A brief critique of the current regulations is also provided.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which these reforms address the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s previous investment framework. Long viewed as a hostile environment in which to do business, the Saudi Government has enacted a broad sweep of measures aimed at restoring investor confidence in central aspects of the country’s evolving private law framework.

This paper offers a timely assessment of the raft of foreign investment reforms, both legislative and regulatory, that have been introduced in Saudi Arabia over the last decade.

The paper will proceed by outlining the perceived failings of the old investment regime before going on to reforms.

It will consider the remaining obstacles to the flow of foreign investment in Saudi Arabia in the context of the dual forces that have historically defined the Kingdom’s ambivalent investment law regime.

The authors investigate how foreign investment in securities market informs about the future firm performance in emerging markets.

The authors define the independent variable, abnormal foreign investment (AFI) as the residuals of the foreign ownership equation. The authors regress foreign ownership on its first lag and factors and define the residuals as the AFI. The AFI is the over- or under-investment reflecting foreign conscious (clear-purpose) investment, thus better indicating how foreign investment affects firm performance. The dependent variable is Tobin’s q (Q), which represents the firm performance. Then, the authors regress the Tobin’s q next quarters (Qt + k) on the AFI current quarter (AFIt). The authors use a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) and check endogeneity with the D-GMM model for the regression.

The results show that the current AFI is positively correlated with the firm performance in each of the next four quarters (the following one year). This positive relationship is pronounced for large firms, firms with no large foreign investors, liquid firms and firms listed in the active market. The results suggest that foreign investment might choose well-productive firms already. Also, the current AFI is significantly positively correlated with stock returns in each of the next three quarters. These results suggest that the AFI is informative up to one-year period.

The results suggest that foreign investors (most of them are small) in the Vietnamese market might choose well-productive firms already. However, if the large investors have long-term investment in tangible, intangible, human capital and so on, and lead to a significant increase in firms’ performance is still the limitation of this paper.

The results of this paper may guide investors whose portfolios are composed of stocks with foreign investment.

This paper adds to the literature to enrich the conclusion of a positive relationship between foreign ownership and firm performance.

Purpose – Examine the role of institutional investors in accelerating the development of capital markets and economies abroad, the determinants of their investment, both in the domestic and foreign markets, and their importance in promoting good corporate governance practices worldwide and facilitating increased financial integration.

Methodology/approach – Review and synthesize recent academic literature (1970–2011) on the process of international financial integration and the role of foreign institutional investors in the increasingly global financial markets.

Findings – Despite the concern that short-term flow of international capital can be destructive to the emerging and developing market economies, academic evidence on a destabilizing effect of foreign investment activity is limited. Institutional investors’ systematic preference for stocks of large, well-known, globally visible foreign firms can explain the presence of a home bias in international portfolio investment.

Research limitations – Given the breadth of the two literature streams, only representative studies (over 45 published works) are summarized.

Social implications – Regulators of emerging markets should first improve domestic institutions, governance, and macroeconomic fundamentals, and then deregulate domestic financial and capital markets to avoid economic and financial crises in the initial stages of liberalization reforms.

Originality/value of paper – A useful source of information for graduate students, academics, and practitioners on the importance of foreign institutional investors.

The chapter analyzes the modern features of the movement of foreign investments and the participation of the Republic of Belarus in this process. Trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in the context of different countries and the structure of investment capital in our country have been considered. A greater priority in attracting investments in large projects in the form of equity participation compared to debt instruments and profits refinancing has been justified. The largest projects with foreign investments as well as features of outgoing FDI have been considered. The activities of foreign transnational corporations and the factors hindering the internationalization of business activity of domestic enterprises have been studied in detail. The priority areas of government in activities to promote the attraction of FDI to the Republic of Belarus have been analyzed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of country- and firm-specific factors on foreign investment in Pakistan.

This study uses time-series data for country-level determinants and uses panel data for 100 listed non-financial companies selected based on market capitalisation from 2005 to 2015.

Findings suggest that the stock market returns and liquidity of the country significantly positively influence the foreign portfolio investment (FPI) in Pakistan. Whereas, economic growth surprisingly is negatively related to foreign portfolio investment. In addition, findings reveal that firm size, financial leverage, dividend yield and global depositary receipts (GDR) have a positive impact on the total foreign investment at firm level. Further, foreign institutional investors prefer to invest in those firms that are large, pay high dividends and issue GDR. Furthermore, findings suggest that foreign direct investors tend to invest in firms that are financially leveraged and have low capital gain yield.

At the country level, this study recommends that stock market performance, economic growth and foreign reserves of the country should be maintained and improved to attract FPI. At the firm level, this study recommends issuance of global depositary receipts and high dividend payouts for those firms that are interested in institutional investment in Pakistan.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this study is the first that examines the effect of firm-level factors along with country-level factors on foreign investment in Pakistan.

This paper examines in some detail the magnitude, structure and patterns of foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern Europe between 1988 and 1993. The authors identify and describe three major forms of investment structuring and three operative investment strategies. Data show the actual flows of capital from their source countries to their countries of investment. These data are used to explain the differences in patterns of investment across the CEE. The number and types of foreign direct investments within individual countries are presented and discussed. The paper concludes by assessing the success to date of FDI.

The purpose of this study is to examine the link between country-level corporate governance and foreign direct investment in African economies for the period 2009-2015.

The authors use annual panel data of 40 African economies over the period of the study and use the system generalized method of moments (GMM) to establish the relationship between country-level corporate governance and foreign direct investment.

The authors find that African economies characterized by firms with high ethical values tend to attract a great deal of foreign direct investment. In addition, they highlight that when an economy is associated with effective corporate boards, it tends to attract much foreign direct investment. Further, this study reveals that the level of minority shareholders’ interests’ protection in an economy has a significant positive relationship with foreign direct investment. Finally, they document a negative relationship between effectiveness of regulation of securities and exchanges and foreign direct investment.

It is advised that sound and implementable corporate governance structures devoid of political interferences should be put in place in African economies, if the aim of using foreign direct investment to mitigate poverty by 2015 as part of the Millennium Development Goals is to be attained.

Empiricists have devoted considerable effort to estimate the factors that influence the level of foreign direct investment into African economies without taking into consideration the corporate governance structures in these economies. However, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between country-level corporate governance structures and foreign direct investment in African economies.

Reports on a study that examines, by interviews and archival research, the promotional structures which 11 governments in ten countries have put in place to market their economies to foreign investors. Focuses specifically on the various forms through which these governments have conducted their overseas marketing operations. Finds that governments that have been most effective in influencing foreign investors have created overseas offices that “stand alone”, and are unconnected with the governments′ other foreign operations. Also identifies the conditions necessary for a successful overseas investment promotion operation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the legal system that overrules these concerns within the body of the international investment laws. The question which remains is how can host countries and their ruling bodies maintain their national security without disregarding the legitimate expectations of foreign investments and their international responsibilities?

Balancing the relationship between the national security of the host country and the legitimate expectations of the foreign investments is one of the oldest challenges within the body of the international investment laws because the realization of the right to maintain the national security, without regulating the host countries, leaves room for corruption, and meeting the legitimate expectations of the foreign investments can lead to the disruption of the national sovereignty of the host country.

Studies show that the international investment laws do not take a clear stance when it comes to regulating the relationship between the national security of the host countries and the legitimate expectations of the foreign investments and that they are, in fact, in some cases, paradoxical and disorganized; there are instances of attempts to overprotect the national security of the host country, while the rights and the benefits of the foreign investments are disregarded,

At times there is an attempt to expand the realm of legitimate expectations of the foreign investments which would, in turn, disrupt the national security of the host country.