In defense of bilateral investment treaties

Bilateral Investment Treaties and International Integration

This paper studies how bilateral investment treaties (BITs) affect the trade integration between partner countries. While the overall results from the full sample show that BIT signing is associated with an increase in overall imports that is generally smaller than the effect of WTO membership, BIT signing is found to have a considerable effect on capital goods imports and on imports of differe...

Bilateral Investment Treaties and Domestic Institutions

bilateral investment treaties

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FDI Promotion through Bilateral Investment Treaties: More Than a Bit?

Policymakers in developing countries have increasingly pinned their hopes on bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in order to improve their chances in the worldwide competition for foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the effectiveness of BITs in inducing higher FDI inflows is still open to debate. It is in several ways that we attempt to clarify the inconclusive empirical findings of earl...

Why Should I Believe You? The Costs and Consequences of Bilateral Investment Treaties

Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are the primary legal mechanism protecting foreign direct investment (FDI) around the world. BITs are thought to encourage FDI by establishing a broad set of investor’s rights and by allowing investors to sue a host state in an international tribunal if these rights are violated. Perhaps surprisingly, the empirical literature connecting BITs to FDI flows has...