Foster Business Library


Foreign Direct Investment


Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university may be unable to access some of these resources.
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Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.

  • Datastream:   This database provides daily historical pricing information for U.S. and international securities (debt and equity) and market indices. The database also includes macroeconomic information from a variety of sources including national governments, International Monetary Fund and OECD. Data may be printed or downloaded. Datastream is available in the Foster Business Library only on Public PC #019 on Tuesdays, from 8AM to noon, and on Thursdays, from noon to 5PM; it is not networkable. A separate menu line for Datastream codes is available for access whenever the Foster Business Library is open. Datastream is shared with and also available, with assistance provided, at The Center for Social Science Computation and Research, in the basement of Savery Hall. This database is not designed for the non-expert; for more about this database and guides for its use, go to About Datastream.

    This database covers hundreds of countries, with data on direct investment abroad as well as direct investment within the host country, all downloadable into spreadsheet programs.

  • Digital Dissertations:   Available under List of All Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. This database provides indexing and abstracts for doctoral dissertations and masters theses from over 1,000 Universities and Colleges in the U.S. from 1861 to the present. The citations to dissertations are long and 24-page previews of the dissertations are available online for free.

    A search in this database for the keywords Foreign Direct Investment produced a list of over 700 dissertations, including Foreign direct investment and wage inequality across and within nations: An empirical analysis (China). A more specific search for Foreign Direct Investment and India produced just 22 dissertations.

  • EconLit:   Produced by the American Economic Association, EconLit is the fundamental research tool in economics. The database provides bibliographic citations, with selected abstracts, to the international literature on economics since 1969. Econ Lit corresponds to the Journal of Economic Literature and the Index of Economic Articles, covering journal articles, books, and dissertations, as well as articles in collective works, such as conference proceedings and collected essay volumes.

    A search for Foreign Direct Investment produced over 2,500 citations; for Foreign Direct Investment and India, over 50 citations; for Foreign Direct Investment and China, over 250 citations.

  • EIU Online:   One of the world's top sources for country intelligence, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) employs 500 analysts who research almost 200 nations. The Foster Business Library provides access to their Country Profiles, Country Reports, Country Commerce, and Country Finance in print editions and this database provides online access to these publications, often in both HTML and PDF formats.

    For Foreign Direct Investment data, go to the Country Report for a country and to Economic Structure for Capital Flows. For more narrative information on this topic, go to Country Profiles for your country, and then to External Sector: Capital Flows and Foreign Debt. See also Country Commerce (if there is one for your country), and, in particular, Key Commercial Indicators for Investing: Foreign Investment Indicators; see also the Foreign Direct Investment section. Finally, be sure as well to check Viewswire; a search for Foreign Direct Investment retrieved over 14,000 references; a search for Foreign Direct Investment and India, for instance, netting over 900 articles.

  • Europa World:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under List of All Business Databases.   Political, social and economic information about countries. Includes country maps and a directory of political and business organizations in each country.

    For FDI information for a country, go to the Finance data for the country, then to the Balance of Payments section and Direct Investment (Net).

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under List of All Business Databases.   The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research; go to Business for three major business sources:   the Encyclopedia of American Industries (4th ed., 2005), the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance (2001), and the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2nd ed., 2002).

    See International Investment, in the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance.

  • JSTOR:   JSTOR is a subject searchable index of 360 journals, with full-text backfiles of scholarly journals, some of which date back to the 1800's. Among the collections of scholarly journals on this site are ones for Business and for Economics, encompassing 72 journals.

    A search, in Economics and Business, for Foreign Direct Investment, produced a list of more than 200 articles; for Foreign Direct Investment and India, just three articles; for Foreign Direct Investment and China, just seven articles.

  • Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS):   This database, to be found under List of All Business Database on the Foster Business Library homepage, indexes articles from over 1,400 journals along with thousands of government documents, statistical directories, reports, pamphlets, conference proceedings and books in the broad field of public and social policy issues, dating back to 1980.

    A search for the phrase Foreign Direct Investmen produced a list of more than 600 references, from magazines, government agencies, banks, books, etc.

  • Social Sciences Citation Index:   This database "is a multidisciplinary index, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the social sciences. It indexes more than 1,725 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. It "provides access to current information and retrospective data from 1956 forward."

    A topic search for Foreign Direct Investment retrieved over 1,300 documents; for Foreign Direct Investment and India, 15 documents.

  • Source OECD:     Source OECD is the online library of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with twenty OECD book collections by theme, including all of the organization's monographs and reports published since 1998; twenty OECD periodicals; some OECD reference titles; and the OECD databases. The OECD has 30 member countries and relationships with 70 other countries.

    See their FDI Flows and Stocks page.

  • STAT-USA:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Databases. In this database are business, economic, and trade statistics and data from the U.S. Department of Commerce and other Federal government sources. To access international information, go to Country Commercial Guides. These guides contain information on the business and economic situation of foreign counties and the political climate as it affects U.S. business. They are produced annually by U.S. Embassy staff including the Department of State, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture.

    See the Investment Climate Statement for each country for information about Foreign Direct Investment.

  • WDI Online:   This World Bank database, World Development Indicators Online, "contains statistical data for over 550 development indicators and time series data from 1960-2000 for over 200 countries and 18 country groups. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators. Data selection screens are intuitive and easy to use. Results can be scaled, indexed against a particular year, viewed by percentage change, and charted. These features plus data export options in standard formats like Excel make WDI Online the most useful tool yet for researching developmental data." See also the related GDF Online, for Global Development Finance Online, with "a comprehensive set of tables with statistical data for 136 countries that report debt under the World Bank Debtor Reporting System, as well as summary data for regions and income groups. It contains data on total external debt stocks and flows, aggregates, and key debt ratios, and provides a detailed, country-by-country picture of debt."

    This database, after you choose a country or countries, then allows you to pick one or more of a large number of categories, four of which are for Foreign Direct Investment: net (balance of payments, current $U.S., new inflows (% of GDP, net inflows (% of gross capital formation), and balance of payments, current $U.S.).

    Web Resources:

    Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.

  • Bank for International Settlements:   This international organization, founded in 1930, fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a central bank for national central banks. A search for Foreign Direct Investment at this site produced a list of over 2,500 working papers, reports, etc., many in PDF format.

  • Country Background Notes:   The U.S. Department of State provides these Country Background Notes for over 180 countries. These notes provide brief information about each nation's geography, people and history, government, political conditions, economy, foreign relations, relations with the United States, and travel and business information. See the Foreign Investment section for each country for information about Foreign Direct Investment.

  • Direct Investment (Bureau of Economic Analysis):   This U.S. Department of Commerce agency "produces economic accounts statistics that enable government and business decision-makers, researchers, and the American public to follow and understand the performance of the Nation's economy. To do this, BEA collects source data, conducts research and analysis, develops and implements estimation methodologies, and disseminates statistics to the public." See U.S. Direct Investment Abroad and Foreign Direct Investment in the U.S. See also their articles about International Investment, some of which are about Foreign Direct Investment. For more articles and data on this topic, go to the International Investment Division of the Bureau. See also the Bureau's Survey of Current Business and, specifically, the July issue, which covers the International Investment Position of the United States at Year end and Direct Investment Positions: Country and Industry Detail.

  • Fed in Print:   This site allows you to search the index to Federal Reserve economic research. A search for Foreign Direct Investment produced over documents.

  • Finance & Development:   This joint World Bank and International Monetary Fund publication is devoted in large part to issues that include Foreign Direct Investment. Finance & Development is also available in print in the Foster Business Library Periodicals Collection. A search of the archive of this publication for Foreign Direct Investment produced a list of over 160 articles.

  • Institute for International Economics:   "The Institute for International Economics is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy. Since 1981 the Institute has provided timely, objective analysis and concrete solutions to key international economic problems." Among the research areas of interest to the institute is International Trade and Investment. In this section, see Foreign Direct Investment for policy briefs, working papers, books, as well as speeches and testimony.

  • International Monetary Fund:   "The IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment." See their Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Statistics. A site search for Foreign Direct Investment produced over 3,000 documents.

  • NationMaster.Com:   This Australian site uses data from numerous sources to provide graphic rankings, lists and interactive comparisons for countries' crime, economy, education, energy, environment, geography, government, health, media, military, people, religion, sports, and transportation, for 251 countries. This site also enables viewing of individual country profiles, with maps and flags, and of regions and groupings. See Top 130 Net Foreign Investment, By Country for Foreign Direct Investment.

  • UNCTAD Foreign Direct Investment Database:   This United Nations database, from UNCTAD's Division on Investment, Technology and Enterprise Development, provides detailed information about foreign direct investment in a country, with detailed statistics on flows, stocks and the operations of transnational corporations, itemized by components, industry and investor/recipient country. Over 190 countries are included in this database. See also their Foreign Direct Investment Country Links and Inward FDI Indices.

  • Wikipedia:   This free online user-created and maintained encyclopedia can be a good starting point for an orientation to a topic. See their entry for Foreign Direct Investment.

  • World Bank Country Profiles:   Country profiles prepared by World Bank staff, with Country Briefs and IFC Country Profiles available for over 150 nations. Some of the reports attached to each nation are in PDF format. A search for Foreign Direct Investment produced a list of over 900 documents; for Foreign Direct Investment and India, 1,000 documents.

  • World Economic Forum:   The World Economic Forum is "an independent international organization incorporated as a Swiss not-for-profit foundation and has NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations." A site search for Foreign Direct Investment produced over 170 records.

    Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

    The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.

  • Index of economic freedom.
    This annual paperback, jointly issued by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal, ranks 156 countries in terms of foreign investment friendliness, taxes, tariffs, banking regulations, monetary policy, black markets, net foreign direct investment, etc. Arrangement is alphabetical by country.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HB95 .I48 2002.

    See chapter four for Property Rights Ambiguity and the Effect of Foreign Investment Decisions on Firm Value; see also each country's profile for Foreign Investment and Foreign Direct Investment.

  • Principles of economics.
    This college textbook, by Gregory Mankiw, covers all aspects of economics, for undergraduate students in economics courses.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HB171.5 .M264 2004.

    See pages 547 to 549 and pages 678 and 679 for Foreign Direct Investment.

  • World development indicators.
    This World Bank volume contains a large number of tables listing each country and key data about its people, environment, economy, markets, employment, poverty, etc. For data about personal computers, internet hosts, secure servers, etc., see section 5.10 for Information Age.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HC59.15 .W656 (Annual)
    Also available, in part, online at http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi/home.html.

    See section 6.1 for Foreign Direct Investment, Gross, as Share of PPP GDP; section 5.2 for Foreign Direct Investment, as share of GDP and of Gross Capital Formation; and section 6.7 for total Foreign Direct Investment.

  • Business: the ultimate resource.
    This 2,200-page single volume is "designed to offer a wide range of insights, information, and practical guidance on every aspect of management" via 2.5 million words of text from 200 contributors, with 700 illustrations and 150 maps, in seven major sections including best practice, a management library, business thinkers and management giants, a business dictionary, a world business almanac, and a guide to business sources. See the World Business Almanac section, on pages 1368 to 1767, for brief reports on 150 countries.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD38.15 .B878 2002.

    For Foreign Direct Investment, see pages 1428 to 1431.

  • The IMD world competitiveness yearbook.
    This yearbook, published by the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, provides ranking information in many competitiveness categories for 46 major countries. Among the many categories are international trade, employment, prices, business legislation, labor markets, management practices, impact of globalization, corruption. There is an index to criteria on pages 704 to 717.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF1414 .W67 (Annual)

    For Foreign Direct Investment, see the sections on International Investment and on Foreign Investment.

  • Encyclopedia of business ethics and society.
    This five-volume reference work includes 900 essays by scholars, arranged alphabetically by topic, on all aspects of business ethics.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5387 .E53 2008.

    See Foreign Direct Investment in volume two, on pages 927 to 931.

  • International financial statistics yearbook.
    Published annually by the International Monetary Fund, this compendium of statistics for every country provides information on population, GDP, producer, wholesale and consumer prices, wages, labor force, unemployment, volume and value of imports and exports, and many other categories. Statistics cover each year of the past 30 years, where data is available. The monthly versions of this yearbook are available in the Foster Business Library Reference, with the call number HG3881 .I626
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG3881 .I6263 (Annual)

    For Foreign Direct Investment, see Financial Account on the second page of each country's section; see the two listings for Direct Investment Abroad.

  • The following eight unannotated titles were published by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and are a good source for older published data and statistics; they are listed, roughly, from oldest data or date of publication to latest:

    • Selected data on foreign direct investment in the United States, 1950-79.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4910 .S395 1984.
    • Foreign direct investment in the United States: balance of payments and direct investment position estimates, 1980-86.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4910 .F613 1990.
    • U.S. direct investment abroad: balance of payments and direct investment position estimates, 1982-1988.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4910 .U57 1995.
    • Foreign direct investment in the United States: 1987 Benchmark survey, final results.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4910 .F6 1990.
    • Foreign direct investment and transnational corporations in services.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4538 .F6192 1989.
    • Foreign direct investment in the United States: establishment data.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4501 .F674 1991-1992.
    • Foreign direct investment in the United States: 1992 Benchmark survey, final results.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4910 .F617 1995.
    • Foreign direct investment in the United States: operations of U.S. affiliates.
      Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4910 .F65 1995.

  • Global financial stability report.
    This paperback, from the International Monetary Fund, is part of its World Economic and Financial Surveys series, and covers financial market developments and issues. The first issue in this series appeared in March 2002. The series provides a regular assessment of global financial markets, with many tables and figures.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4523 .G56 September 2003. (Earlier editions are in the Foster Business Library General Stacks)

    Foreign Direct Investment is mentioned in many places in this report.

  • World investment report.
    This paperback, from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, is devoted to global trends in foreign direct investment, benchmarking in this area, regional trends, the largest transnational corporations, promotion of export-oriented foreign direct investment, and many tables and figures on these topics. The reference collection also includes the 1992 and 1995 editions of this title.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4538 .W67 1992, 1995, 2002, 2003, 2004.

    See, in particular, the copious data on Foreign Direct Investment in the two annexes appended to the text.

  • Probe directory of foreign direct investment in the United States.
    This hefty older title, in its sixth edition, lists U.S corporations, in alphabetic order, that were the recipients of completed foreign direct investment in manufacturing, with the overseas company name and type of business. At the end of the volume is an index of foreign investors by country.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4907 .P74 1989.

  • The Europa world year book.
    Two-volume work arranged alphabetically by country, with 24-page reviews of each country's recent history, its government and economy, social welfare and education; a statistical summary of vital statistics, employment, agriculture, industry, finance and trade; and summaries of governmental and political organizations, trade associations, media, etc.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: JN1 .E85 (Annual)

    For Foreign Direct Investment, see the Payments section and Direct Investment Abroad for each country, under Balance of Payments.

  • In addition to titles in the Foster Business Library reference collection, there are also important relevant reference titles elsewhere in the UW Libraries, such as:

    • Balance of payments statistics yearbook.
      Published by the International Monetary Fund, in two parts, with Foreign Direct Investment information, by country, in part one.
      UW Bothell Library Reference, CALL NUMBER HG3882 .B37 v.49- (1998- )
      Government Publications Stacks, CALL NUMBER: HG3882 .B37 v.32-45, 47-52 (1981-1994, 1996-2001)

    • International direct investment statistics yearbook.
      Published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
      Government Publications Reference Desk, CALL NUMBER: HG4583 .I58 1992/2003.

    Foster Business Library Books:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

    To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

    If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

    The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

    A keyword search for the phrase Foreign Direct Investment produced a list of over 400 records in the UW Libraries, including over eighty records in the Foster Business Library. Examples include:

    The subject term for Foreign Direct Investment is Investments, Foreign; there are over 3,500 records in the UW Libraries on this subject, including about 1000 records in the Foster Business Library. Examples include:

    This subject search can be further subdivided by country. A subject search for Investments, Foreign – India, for instance, produced a list of over ninety records in the UW Libraries, including eighteen records in the Foster Business Library.

    Foster Business Library Articles:

    Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online, 24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.

    Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.

    ProQuest Databases:

    This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide.

    Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.

    A basic search for the phrase "Foreign Direct Investment" produced over 18,000 articles, including over 2,700 scholarly articles, over 600 magazine articles, over 3,600 articles in trade publications, and over 6,000 newspaper articles. One of the periodicals included in this databse, by the way, is Foreign Direct Investment, with full text from 1975.

    The subject term for Foreign Direct Investment, in this database, is Foreign Investment; there are over 82,000 articles in this database on this subject (over 72,0000 articles in full text), with over 300 narrowing terms (subjects, places, companies, etc.) associated with this subject.

    Examples of articles from these searches include:

    Help:

    2 December 2003; updated 8 May 2008.   Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu