Publication: China and Central and Eastern European Countries : Regional Networks, Global Supply Chain, or International Competitors?
Loading...
Date
2008-08
ISSN
Published
2008-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
China has emerged as one of the top recipients of foreign direct investment in the world. Meanwhile, the successful transition experience of many Central and Eastern European countries has also allowed them to attract an increasing share of global foreign direct investment. In this paper, the authors use a panel data set to investigate whether foreign direct investment flows to these two regions are complements, substitutes, or independent of each other. Taking into account the role of host country characteristics - such as market size, degree of trade liberalization, and human capital - the authors find no evidence that foreign direct investment flows to one region are at the expense of those to the other. Instead, the results suggest that foreign direct investment flows are driven by distinct regional production networks (and thus are largely independent of each other) and the development of global supply chains (indicating that foreign direct investment flows are complementary).
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Fung, K.C.; Korhonen, Iikka; Li, Ke; Ng, Francis. 2008. China and Central and Eastern European Countries : Regional Networks, Global Supply Chain, or International Competitors?. Policy Research Working Paper No. 4689. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6809 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Exports, Labor Markets, and the Environment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)What is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The Asymmetric Bank Distress Amplifier of Recessions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-11)One defining feature of financial crises, evident in U.S. and international data, is asymmetric bank distress—concentrated losses on a subset of banks. This paper proposes a model in which shocks to borrowers’ productivity dispersion lead to asymmetric bank losses. The framework exhibits a “bank distress amplifier,” exacerbating economic downturns by causing costly bank failures and raising uncertainty about the solvency of banks, thereby pushing banks to deleverage. Quantitative analysis shows that the bank distress amplifier doubles investment decline and increases the spread by 2.5 times during the Great Recession compared to a standard financial accelerator model. The mechanism helps explain how a seemingly small shock can sometimes trigger a large crisis.Publication Impact of Heat Waves on Learning Outcomes and the Role of Conditional Cash Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)This paper evaluates the impact of higher temperatures on learning outcomes in Peru. The results suggest that 1 degree above 20°C is equivalent to 7 and 6 percent of a standard deviation of what a student learns in a year for math and reading tests, respectively. These results hold true when the main specification is changed, splitting the sample, collapsing the data at school level, and using other climate specifications. The paper aims to improve understanding of how to deal with the impacts of climate change on learning outcomes in developing countries. The evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs can mitigate the negative effects of higher temperatures on students’ learning outcomes in math and reading.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Potential and Actual FDI Spillovers in Global Value Chains : The Role of Foreign Investor Characteristics, Absorptive Capacity and Transmission Channels(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)Using newly collected survey data on direct supplier-multinational linkages in Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Vietnam, this paper first evaluates whether foreign investors differ from domestic producers in terms of their potential to generate positive spillovers for local suppliers. It finds that foreign firms outperform domestic producers on several indicators, but have fewer linkages with the local economy and offer less supplier assistance, resulting in offsetting effects on the spillover potential. The paper also studies the relationship between foreign investor characteristics and linkages with the local economy as well as assistance extended to local suppliers. It finds that foreign investor characteristics matter for both. The paper also examines the role of suppliers' absorptive capacities in determining the intensity of their linkages with multinationals. The results indicate that several supplier characteristics matter, but these effects also depend on the length of the supplier relationship. Finally, the paper assesses whether assistance or requirements from a multinational influence spillovers on suppliers. The results confirm the existence of positive effects of assistance (including technical audits, joint product development, and technology licensing) on foreign direct investment spillovers, while the analysis finds no evidence of demand effects.Publication Is There a Case for Industrial Policy? A Critical Survey(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2006-07-22)What are the underlying rationales for industrial policy? Does empirical evidence support the use of industrial policy for correcting market failures that plague the process of industrialization? This article addresses these questions through a critical survey of the analytical literature on industrial policy. It also reviews some recent industry successes and argues that public interventions have played only a limited role. Moreover, the recent ascendance and dominance of international production networks in the sectors in which developing countries once had considerable success implies a further limitation on the potential role of industrial policies as traditionally understood. Overall, there appears to be little empirical support for an activist government policy even though market failures exist that can, in principle, justify the use of industrial policy.Publication Bilateral M&A Activity from the Global South(2012-01-01)This paper studies the factors associated with outbound bilateral mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity by firms located in emerging economies. The authors document recent trends in emerging market M&A flows, which have risen dramatically over the past decade, and explore the factors that may have contributed to this rise. They find distinct patterns for M&A deals according to whether the acquisition targets are in other emerging economies or advanced countries, and that these differences can be attributed to differing theoretical motivations behind foreign direct investment. The authors also consider the implications of their model for future M&A originating in the global South, in light of the global financial crisis of 2008.Publication Microeconomic Consequences and Macroeconomic Causes of Foreign Direct Investment in Southern African Economies(2010-09-01)The causes and consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries remains a subject of debate among researchers and policymakers alike. The authors use international data and a new micro-data set of firms in thirteen Southern African Developing Countries (SADCs) to investigate the benefits and determinants of FDI in this region. FDI appears to have facilitated local development in the SADC region. Foreign firms tend to perform better than domestic firms, tend to be larger, are located in richer and better-governed countries and in countries with more competitive financial intermediaries, and they are more likely to export than domestic firms. They also exhibit positive spillover effects to domestic firms. Relying on a standard model to predict the country-level FDI inflows per capita, the authors find that SADC is attracting their expected level of FDI inflows, at least relative to its income level, human capital, demographic structure, institutions, and economic track record. There are some differences between SADC and the rest of the world in FDI behavior: in SADC, the income level is less important and openness more so. The authors use two comparison groups to compare with SADC to shed light on why other regions have attracted more FDI per capita than SADC. The factors that explain SADC s low FDI inflows are economic fundamentals (e.g., previous growth rates, average income, phone density, and the adult share of population).Publication The Impact of Export Tax Incentives on Export Performance : Evidence from the Automotive Sector in South Africa(2011-03-01)The original goal of the Motor Industry Development Program was to help the automotive industry in South Africa adjust to trade liberalization and become internationally competitive. In simple terms, it consists of an import/export complementation arrangement, whereby the local value-added of components or built-up vehicles exported earns credits that can be used to rebate import duties on components and vehicles. This study provides a first attempt at a quantitative analysis of the Motor Industry Development Program using the difference-in-difference methodology, in order to assess to what extent the program was effective in improving South Africa's automotive export performance during 1996-2006. The authors take a two-tier approach. First, they perform a comparative study using different manufacturing sectors within South Africa; second, they apply this methodology to analyze South Africa and a number of comparator countries that are automotive producers and exporters. The analysis finds that the impact of the program on automotive exports in South Africa is positive and significant. In particular, (i) the largest response to the program in terms of improved manufacturing exports occurs with a delay after the adoption of the law, suggesting that exports need time to fully react to the incentives; and (ii) in turn, the effectiveness of the tax incentives fades in time, reaffirming the common belief that tax incentives may affect some business decisions particularly in the short run, but they are not a primary consideration for investors in the long run.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Mexican Social Protection System in Health(World Bank, Washington DC, 2013-01)With a population of 113 million and a per-capita Gross Domestic Product, or GDP of US$10,064 (current U.S. dollars), Mexico is one of the largest and highest-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The country has benefited from sustained economic growth during the last decade, which was temporarily interrupted by the financial and economic crisis. Real GDP is projected to grow 3.8 percent and 3.6 percent in 2012 and 2013, respectively (International Monetary Fund, or IMF 2012). Despite this growth, poverty in the country remains high; with half of the population living below the national poverty line. The country is also highly heterogeneous, with large socioeconomic differences across states and across urban and rural areas. In 2010, while the extreme poverty ratio in the Federal District and the states of Colima and Nuevo Leon was below 3 percent, in Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca it was 25 percent or higher. These large regional differences are also found in other indicators of well-being, such as years of schooling, housing conditions, and access to social services. This case study assesses key features and achievements of the Social Protection System in Health (Sistema de Proteccion Social en Salud) in Mexico, and particularly of its main pillar, Popular Health Insurance (Seguro Popular, PHI). It analyzes the contribution of this policy to the establishment and implementation of universal health coverage in Mexico. In 2003, with the reform of the General Health Law, the PHI was institutionalized as a subsidized health insurance scheme open to the population not covered by the social security schemes. Today, the PHI covers all of its intended affiliates, about 52 million peoplePublication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Crime and Violence in Central America : A Development Challenge - Main Report(World Bank, 2011-01-01)Crime and violence are now a key development issue for Central American countries. In three nations El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras crime rates are among the top five in Latin America. This report argues that successful strategies require actions along multiple fronts, combining prevention and criminal justice reform, together with regional approaches in the areas of drug trafficking and firearms. It also argues that interventions should be evidence based, starting with a clear understanding of the risk factors involved and ending with a careful evaluation of how any planned action might affect future options. In addition, the design of national crime reduction plans and the establishment of national cross-sectoral crime commissions are important steps to coordinate the actions of different government branches, ease cross-sectoral collaboration and prioritize resource allocation. Of equal importance is the fact that national plans offer a vehicle for the involvement of civil society organizations, in which much of the expertise in violence prevention and rehabilitation resides. Prevention efforts need to be complemented by effective law enforcement. The required reforms are no longer primarily legislative in nature because all six countries have advanced toward more transparent adversarial criminal procedures. The second-generation reforms should instead help deliver on the promises of previous reforms by: (i) strengthening key institutions and improving the quality and timeliness of the services they provide to citizens; (ii) improving efficiency and effectiveness while respecting due process and human rights; (iii) ensuring accountability and addressing corruption; (iv) increasing inter-agency collaboration; and (v) improving access to justice, especially for poor and disenfranchised groups. Specific interventions reviewed in the report include: information systems and performance indicators as a prerequisite to improve inter-institutional coordination and information sharing mechanisms; an internal overhaul of court administration and case management to create rapid reaction, one-stop shops; the strengthening of entities that provide legal counseling to the poor and to women; and the promotion of alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms and the implementation of community policing programs.Publication Guide to the Debt Management Performance Assessment Tool(Washington, DC, 2008-02-05)The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and supplemental information to assist with country assessments of debt management performance, using the Debt Management Performance Assessment (DeMPA) tool. The DeMPA is a methodology used for assessing public debt management performance through a comprehensive set of 15 performance indicators spanning the full range of government Debt Management (DeM) functions. It is based on the principles set out in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank guidelines for public debt management, initially published in 2001 and updated in 2003. It is modeled after the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework for performance measurement of public financial management. The DeMPA has been designed to be a user-friendly tool to undertake an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in government DeM practices. This guide provides additional background and supporting information so that a no specialist in the area of debt management may undertake a country assessment effectively. The guide can be used by assessors in preparing for and undertaking an assessment. It is particularly useful for understanding the rationale for the inclusion of the indicators, the scoring methodology, and the list of supporting documents or evidence required, and the questions that could be asked for the assessment.