Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation in Focus

26 items available

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The series captures the experience, innovative approaches and solutions for development of the World Bank Group covering financial sector topics of relevance to both the public and private sectors. The series is comprised of short knowledge notes, policy notes, case studies, lessons learned or a combination therein. This series was formerly known as Finance in Focus.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Attracting Foreign Direct Investment into Tunisia through Outreach Campaigns
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-01) Sabha, Yassin; Hamden, Mouna; Heilbron, Armando
    After the Arab Spring, Tunisia urgently needed to create productive jobs and economic opportunities for its young population. Attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in priority sectors was a key pillar of the Government’s strategy to deliver this job agenda. With the support of the World Bank Group, the Investment Promotion Agency of Tunisia engaged in proactive outreach campaigns which resulted in 21 investment leads and three announced FDI projects, including a manufacturing plant by Japan’s Sumitomo. This case study shows that well-planned and executed investor outreach campaigns can lead to concrete investment results and contribute to a country’s development objectives. It provides key success factors useful to other countries wanting to engage in outreach. More than ever before (in a post-COVID-19 world), outreach can play a key role for countries in their efforts to reposition and take advantage of new investment opportunities from near shoring and emerging sectors. The paper provides examples of IPAs continuing their outreach efforts virtually by leveraging technology.
  • Publication
    Investment Linkages and Incentives: Promoting Technology Transfer and Productivity Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-01) Sabha, Yassin; Liu, Yan; Douw, Wim
    This note seeks to provide an overview of investment incentive policy as a tool for Governments seeking to promote technology transfer and productivity spillovers by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the host economy to local firms and suppliers. It summarizes international experiences to demonstrate what has worked and what has not worked, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of different investment incentive schemes. Evidence suggests that backward linkages between MNEs and local suppliers are the most important channels for technology and productivity spillovers to local firms (Jordaan et al, 2020). Furthermore, backward linkages offer an important avenue for ambitious local firms to integrate into Global Value Chains (GVCs). However, several market failures and challenges often prevent backward linkages from materializing. Policy makers can use investment incentives and other policy tools to help address these challenges. This note highlights examples of investment incentive schemes used by Governments, as well as their pros and cons.
  • Publication
    Foreign Direct Investment, Backward Linkages, and Productivity Spillovers: What Governments Can Do to Strengthen Linkages and Their Impact
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-01) Jordaan, Jacob; Douw, Wim; Qiang, Christine Zhenwei
    This note provides an up-to-date summary of the academic evidence around the drivers and channels for technology transfer and productivity spillovers by multinational corporations (MNC) operating in host economies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a major contributor to development. Besides the direct benefits FDI brings in terms of increased capital, employment and exports, the presence and operations of MNCs can also help improve the productivity of local firms through backward linkages and offer an important channel for the integration of local firms into global value chains (GVC). However, several market failures exist that get in the way of these linkages and spillovers fully materializing. This note highlights the main challenges as well as some policy recommendations for host economy Governments to consider.
  • Publication
    Strengthening Service Delivery of Investment Promotion Agencies: The Comprehensive Investor Services Framework
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03) Heilbron, Armando; Aranda-Larrey, Yago
    Research shows that investment promotion agencies (IPAs) may be the best public institutions to meet government objectives for attracting, establishing, retaining, expanding, and linking productive private investment. As part of this, IPAs need to provide relevant, high-quality services to investors at different stages of the investment life cycle. Informed by its research and experience in global operations, the World Bank Group introduces the Comprehensive Investor Services Framework (CISF), a catalog of specific services to meet investor needs. IPAs can use this investor-centric framework to design service offerings in line with their strategic focus and promotion capacity.
  • Publication
    Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Corporate Tax Incentives: Methodological Approaches and Policy Considerations
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020) Kronfol, Hania; Steenbergen, Victor
    Developing countries are increasingly offering tax breaks to attract investors and pursue various policy objectives such as encouraging investments in research and development (R and D) and increasing exports. Such incentives, however, can be very costly to governments. Too often, developing countries - already struggling with revenue mobilization - adopt investment incentives in an ad hoc manner, without analyzing the value for money of these instruments. Cost-benefit analysis can help policy makers demonstrate the direct cost (tax revenue foregone) incurred by governments against the economic benefits being pursued. Global evidence on investment location decisions suggests that while tax incentives can help attract investment, other factors, such as the wider investment climate and market opportunities, matter most. Tax incentives should therefore be conceived as part of a country’s broader investment policy framework and governments should be realistic about the potential impact any measure may have. In this light, cost-benefit analysis can serve as a powerful tool to inform incentives policy reform and offer important inputs into a country’s investment policy strategy.