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Apart from providing theoretical clarity, the present research aims to validate empirically that the EPU will be adversely affecting these key macroeconomic variables and that managing EPU matters for economic policymaking in Nigeria.

A dynamic autoregressive distributed lag regression model is employed to analyse the relationship from 1990 to 2020. Based on the theory of multiplier effect, the analysis could examine the positive and negative changes in policy uncertainty, as well as the reliability in macroeconomic activities such as unemployment, infrastructure development and foreign direct investment inflows.

The findings revealed EPU is cointegrated with the key economic variables in focus. Further, the negative impact of EPU on corporate investment in FDI and positive impact of EPU on unemployment confirm for both short and long-run. However, the impact of EPU on government investment in infrastructure development is found to be positive which does not confirm the expected hypothesis.

Dynamic relationship between policy uncertainty and macroeconomic activities in Nigeria seems to exist. Taking risky decisions has impact and causing a high unemployment rate, poor infrastructural development and lower foreign direct investment inflows in the country.

Policy uncertainty in Nigeria is determining. Despite that, very little research found that rising uncertainty issues may significantly affect unemployment, investment in infrastructure and foreign direct investment inflows adversely. Therefore, policy uncertainty is an open space for economic activities to thrive in Nigeria, especially unemployment.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2022-0555

Unlike the traditional growth model of emerging markets after economic liberalization, India’s inward foreign direct investment (FDI) surged paralleling its strong economic growth in the 2000s, despite the failure to establish a strong secondary sector. This creates an opportunity to deepen the conceptual and contextual understanding of the pivotal mechanisms that impel foreign multinational enterprises to invest into India and provides a natural setting to better understand the nature of its institutional, political and economic environment.

The authors develop a theory contextualized to Indian inward FDI patterns for the 2000–2017 period. The theoretical framework expands upon received investment motives, with explicit consideration given to the idiosyncrasies of developments in India’s recent macro and socioeconomic environment. The authors test the hypotheses using panel data from 134 countries that invested in India, using a Hausman–Taylor estimation.

The authors find that India’s transition toward a knowledge economy attracts asset augmenting rather than asset exploiting FDI. Investors appear to target long-term investments by gaining access to India’s digital capabilities, R&D, and growing talent base with a high degree of specialization within analytics, biotechnology, engineering, or pharmaceuticals. Foreign investors do not seem to be notably deterred by infrastructural challenges nor by legal and regulatory restrictions.

By providing a new perspective on India’s atheoretical economic development and FDI environment, this study offers a distinct point of comparison with regard to established hypotheses within the extant literature on FDI into emerging markets. Rethinking contemporary investment motive theory by introducing an adapted conceptual framework provides further opportunity to inform the understanding of firm strategies in similar environments.

This research explores the intricate dynamics of national interests realised through Japan's official development assistance (ODA) to China. It aims to deepen the understanding of these mechanisms, detailing the extent to which Japan has accomplished its national interests.

The paper applies the role theory and narrative analysis to elucidate Japan's national role conception and its categories of national interests with regards to its ODA policy. It utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the success rate in achieving Japan's diplomatic objectives and how those interests have manifested over time.

The findings suggest a mixed outcome. Whilst Japan's ODA to China has helped in expanding trade and fostering mutual understanding and cooperation, it has been less successful in promoting democratic governance in China or effectively counterbalancing China's regional power. Hence, the realisation of national interests through ODA is a complex process contingent upon numerous factors.

This study stands out for its multifaceted approach in examining Japan's ODA policy towards China, integrating both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and applying the role theory in the context of international development aid. It fills a significant gap in the literature by analysing the interplay between national interests and foreign aid, providing nuanced insights into the successes and challenges of Japan's pursuit of its diplomatic objectives. The study's findings have important implications for understanding the complexity of international aid dynamics and can inform future policy decisions in the realm of international relations and foreign aid.

Given the surge in foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging economies (EEs) during the past four decades, inward FDI (IFDI) has spawned a rich, scholarly conversation on the topic. This paper aims to review the literature regarding EE IFDI determinants and the impact of IFDI on those economies. It also aims to provide some future research directions.

A systematic review with thematic analysis of 372 articles on the topic, published between 1991 and 2021, is undertaken. In addition to using the relevant keywords, the snowballing approach was used to manually track the literature.

This review highlights EE IFDI determinants such as institutional quality, corruption and intellectual property rights, regional trade agreements and distances, formal and informal institutions and their interactions, national and subnational diversity and policy expectations. Further, IFDI impacts EEs both at macro- and micro-levels. This review also indicates a substantial increase in research during the period 2000 to 2010 and a decline thereafter; it also indicates Africa and Latin America being under-researched, with a focus on Africa recently increasing.

Rich research opportunities exist in examining the mechanisms (mediators) and conditions (moderators) that influence relationships between the antecedents of IFDI and their outcomes. Further opportunities exist in examining the role of the context and in undertaking a multilevel analysis.

This review provides an understanding of what influences multinational enterprises’ FDI to EEs and how it impacts those economies. It also raises potential future research questions. It provides a holistic understanding of the chosen scope and domain.

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.

This paper aims to investigate how the Japanese media conveyed the country’s foreign aid policy and analyse how framing biases in the news differ depending on which language (either Japanese or English) was used in the broadcasts.

This study uses a qualitative single case-study design and conducts a content analysis. The study uses news videos about the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development aired on YouTube by the Japanese media using Japanese and English.

The findings reveal subtle but notable differences in the patterns of the framing biases in the Japanese media’s news aired in Japanese intended for the domestic audience, and in the news on the same topic broadcast in English to the international audience.

The limitation of the study is the rather small data set used for the single case study of one event.

Framing biases could lead the general public in a monolingual society to a more skewed view of their government’s policy and its activities abroad. This could be an obstacle to developing a common ground for global issues and cross-border policy agendas.

The study explores an under-researched function of language in international affairs. It highlights how the mass media in a non-English-speaking country uses a dual approach to framing news while addressing different audiences. To the best of the author’s knowledge, the context that this paper deals with is novel because there are limited studies on the nexus between the influence of language choices and media logic in the field of international business.

China’s foreign aid efforts in Africa remain contentious. Chinese foreign aid tends to be different from “traditional” development assistance in that it frequently involves firms as the implementing agents of projects. Firms bring unique resources to public–private partnerships (PPPs) formed with government agencies, but their possible self-interested nature also gives rise to concerns over their development impact. Yet, on a larger scale, little is known about the characteristics of Chinese PPPs in foreign aid. Using project-level data available for 1,308 Chinese aid projects in 50 countries across Africa, the author characterizes the projects undertaken by firms and government agencies in a PPP and contrasts them to those executed by Chinese government agencies without firm involvement. This exploratory data analysis suggests that important differences apply, as Chinese PPPs tend to target different sustainable development goals (SDGs), work on the basis of distinct aid conditions, and implement projects that tend to be larger than those that are solely run by government agencies. Such observations raise important questions of an ethical, theoretical, and international nature, and warrant further research. The author develops a research agenda that aims at issues particularly important for business ethics scholars, organization theorists, and international business scholarship.

The objective of this study is to explore the dynamic inter-linkage between foreign aid and economic growth in Sri Lanka over the period of 1960–2018.

Both exploratory and inferential data analysis tools have been employed to examine the objective of this study. The exploratory data analysis covered the scatter plots, confidence ellipse with kernel fit. The inferential data analysis included the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) unit root tests, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) Bounds co-integration technique and the Granger causality test.

The test result of exploratory data analysis indicates that there is a positive relationship between foreign aid and economic growth. The ADF and PP unit root tests results indicate that the variables used in this study are stationary at their 1st difference. The co-integration test result confirms the presence of long-run relationship between foreign aid and economic growth in Sri Lanka. The estimated coefficient of foreign aid in the long-run and the short-run shows that foreign aid has a positive relationship with economic growth in Sri Lanka. The estimated coefficient of error correction term indicates that approximately 26.6% of errors are adjusted each year and further shows that the response variable of economic growth moves towards the long-run equilibrium path. The Granger causality test result shows that foreign aid in short-run Granger causes economic growth in Sri Lanka which means that one-way causality from foreign aid to economic growth is confirmed. Further, the estimated coefficient of error correction term confirms that there is the long-run Granger causal relationship between foreign aid and economic growth in Sri Lanka.

The findings of this study have some important policy implications for the design of efficient policy related to foreign aid and economic growth, the knowledge of which will help follow sustainable foreign aid and growth nexus.

This study contributes to the existing literature by using the newly introduced ARDL Bounds cointegration technique to investigate the dynamic inter-linkage between foreign aid and economic growth in Sri Lanka.