Hi all,
Below is our working abstract and title.
Best,
Hai and Hea Min
Title:
Explaining the Growth of Bilateral Investment Treaties: Competition and the
Negative Effects of Learning, Past Agreements, and Trade Relations
Abstract:
This paper aims to evaluate Elkins, Guzman, and Simmons (2006)'s
[henceforth, EGS 2006] claim that the spread of bilateral investment
treaties (BITs) derives from the international economic competition between
potential host countries. In short, BITs are intergovernmental treaties
that guarantee particular rights for foreign investors in a host country;
the foreign investors, in turn, invest within the host country to-in
principle-fulfill their contracts' requirements. EGS 2006 additionally
argue that learning based on past or current successful investment
experiences plays a positive role with BIT signing. This paper extends EGS
2006's work by using event-history analysis and accounts for diminishing
marginal benefits and country-level variations. The results show that
competition among host countries does increase the likelihood of signing a
BIT. However, contrary to EGS 2006's findings, this paper demonstrates how
learning, the presence of previous BIT agreements, and dyadic trade
relations between the investor and host country negatively impact the
signing of a BIT. We therefore conclusively argue that the evidence
suggests learning cannot be used to explain the global increase of BITs.