The widespread use of investment incentives, however, in OECD and developing countries alike, tends to be bad for government transparency and accountability. This is highly detrimental both to economic policy making and to the construction of democratic institutions in developing countries. Driven by technological change, global competition and the ongoing liberalisation of markets, international direct investment plays a key role in the process of global economic integration. Internationally comparable data makes it possible to measure the degree of economic integration and competitiveness of markets. This volume contains a complete series of international direct investment statistics in a standardised format combining sectoral and geographical breakdowns for flow and stock data for all OECD countries.
Technical notes explain the methodology of data collection used in each country.
In order to take stock of the state of the art in assessment methodologies, the OECD organised a two-day technical workshop to focus on past practice and new tools for assessing the environmental effects of trade agreements. Some two dozen experts from governments, international organisations, universities international organisations, universities and NGOs active in this area presented lessons from past practice and results of the considerable advances made in recent years. This volume brings together the papers presented during the two-day workshop by the invited experts and the comments from a range of governmental and international organisation practitioners and representatives of civil society who participated in the workshop. In addition to the presentations on methodologies, this book includes the workshop rapporteur's summary of the gaps in the existing research in this field.