Foreign Firms Investment And Environmental Regulation In The People S Republic Of China

This new book takes as its focus a simple yet critical question: Does foreign direct investment lead to weakened environmental regulation, thereby turning developing countries into "pollution havens"? The debate over this question has never before been the focus of a book about China. Phillip Stalley examines the development of Chinese law governing the environmental impact of foreign investors, describes how regional competition for investment has influenced environmental regulation, and analyzes the environmental practices of foreign and Chinese companies. He finds only modest evidence that integration with the global economy has transformed China into a pollution haven. Indeed, after China opened its domestic market, the entry of foreign films largely strengthened the environmental protection regime, including the oversight of foreign firms' environmental practices. Nevertheless, foreign firms (and the competition to lure them) have posed new challenges to controlling industrial pollution. Stalley identifies the conditions under which foreign investment contributes to and undermines environmental protection, offering readers a solid understanding of China's environmental challenges. He also builds on existing theory and provides hypotheses that can be tested with other developing nations.

Results from 2,886 manufacturing joint venture projects from 1993--96 show that EJVs from all source countries go into provinces with high concentrations of foreign investment, relatively abundant stocks of skilled workers, concentrations of potential local suppliers, special incentives, and less state ownership. Environmental stringency does affect location choice, but not as expected. Low environmental levies are a significant attraction only for joint ventures in highly-polluting industries with partners from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (China). In contrast, joint ventures with partners from OECD sources are not attracted by low environmental levies, regardless of the pollution intensity of the industry. The authors discuss the likely role of technological differences in explaining these results"--Abstract.

Investment in Greater China provides extensive and up-to-date information on the concepts governing foreign investments in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The book, written by hands-on experts in a pragmatic style, explores the full spectrum of Greater China?s investment laws and practices including: legal system; land tenure; investment structure; business regulation; taxation; import and export controls; exchange control; regulation of local finance; labour and nationality law; intellectual property; movement of goods; insurance and disputes settlement. Features of this book include comprehensive coverage and sectional user-friendly index to ensure speedy location of information. Investors, legal and tax practitioners, corporate advisers, management consultants and business professionals who need to participate effectively in the Greater China?s investment environment will benefit from Investment in Greater China. This title forms part of the Asia Business Law Series. The Asia Business Law Series is published in cooperation with CCH Asia and provides updated and reliable practical guidelines, legislation and case law, in order to help practitioners, policy makers and scholars understand how business is conducted in the rapidly growing Asian market. This book was originally published by CCH Asia as the loose-leaf Investment in Greater China

The Chinese market is appealing, but the Chinese legal system is very complicated. A basic understanding of Chinese law is absolutely crucial for companies investing in this fast-growing and potentially huge market. Since China is moving toward a socialist market economy and is increasingly integrated into the world market, some aspects of China's commercial law are different from, while others are moving into line with, those of mature market economies. This book provides an introduction to the Chinese legal system, focusing on laws and regulations on foreign direct investment and highlights recent government policies and measures undertaken to intensify economics reforms so as to meet various challenges arising from China's accession to the World Trade Organization.

The Chinese market is appealing, but its legal environment is very complicated and full of nooses that await investors. This book intends to provide an in-depth analysis of the legal environment and its hidden risks for foreign investment. It covers two basic investment modes which are green-field and M and A, and almost all concrete legal issues including political risk, tax, land use rights, labor etc. Among them, three chapters focus on the legal system and its risks for the foreign investment in three special industries as private education, water market and insurance. The detailed analysis is based on the newest laws and regulations.

The book provides international managers with conceptual frameworks, general guidelines, governmental policies, and insightful evidence useful for their strategic investment decisions involving the People's Republic of China.

The first book to comprehensively analyze the regulation of dirty industry migration - a global issue that has complex economic, environmental and social implications. The book examines the mechanisms of regulation of dirty industry migration under internal trade, investment, environment and human rights laws. Other than international law, the host and home country regulation of dirty industry migration in the context of domestic laws and policies are examined. Finally, this book critically evaluates the voluntary codes relating to corporate environmental citizenship and social responsibility which bear implications on the regulation of dirty industry migration. Based on detailed and up-to-date research

At the center of the pollution haven debate is the claim that foreign investors from industrial countries are attracted to weak environment regulations in developing countries. Some recent location choice studies have found evidence of this attraction, but only for inward FDI in industrial countries. The few studies of inward FDI in developing countries have been hampered by weak measures of environmental stringency and by insufficient data to estimate variation in firm response by pollution intensity. This paper tests for pollution haven behavior by estimating the determinants of location choice for equity joint ventures (EJVs) in China. Beginning with a theoretical framework of firm production and abatement decisions, we derive and estimate a location choice model using data on a sample of EJV projects, Chinese effective levies on water pollution, and Chinese industrial pollution intensity. Results show EJVs in highly-polluting industries funded through Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan are attracted by weak environmental standards. In contrast, EJVs funded from non-ethnically Chinese sources are not significantly attracted by weak standards, regardless of the pollution intensity of the industry. These findings are consistent with pollution haven behavior, but not by investors from high income countries and only in industries that are highly polluting. Further investigation into differences in technology between industrial and developing country investors might shed new light on this debate.