Regional strategic assets and the location strategies of emerging countries’ multinationals in Europe

This paper explores the location strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from emerging countries (EMNEs) in search for regional strategic assets. The analysis is based on a systematic comparison between EMNEs and multinationals from advanced countries (AMNEs) in order to unveil similarities and differences between these two major sources of foreign investment into the regions of the European Union. The empirical results suggest that EMNEs follow a distinctive logic in their location strategies. They are attracted by the availability of technological competences only when their subsidiaries pursue more sophisticated and technology-intensive activities. Conversely, EMNEs share some behavioural similarities with AMNEs in their response to the spatial agglomeration of investments.     

MIGRATION AS A WAY TO DIVERSIFY: EVIDENCE FROM RURAL TO URBAN MIGRATION IN THE U.S.

This paper extends the utility maximization model of migration by introducing income and unemployment‐related uncertainties as determinants of utility, and analyzes the effects of the informational advantages of migrants. The paper maintains that migration would expand an individual's economic choices and opportunities and allow diversification. Consequently, diversification advantages influence the location decisions of migrants, an effect captured by the correlation of incomes at the origin and potential destinations. We use the discrete choice model based on random utility maximization as the framework for our empirical investigation of migration from the United States rural to urban counties. This paper takes advantage of an equivalent relation between the conditional logit model and Poisson regression to study the migration decisions using aggregate data among a large set of spatial alternatives. The results show that the diversification concerns have significant effects on location decisions of the rural‐urban migrants in the United States.     

Capital's search for order: Foreign direct investment in Singapore's overseas parks in Southeast and East Asia

If countries compete for capital in the shape of foreign direct investment (FDI), from the point of view of multinational enterprises (MNEs), there is a market for the social order on offer in different nation states. MNEs seek out particular models of social order for their FDI projects. In the middle is a diverse set of organisations who mediate between supply and demand in a world market for social order. East and Southeast Asia represent interesting and complicated cases in point. Different national models of social order are also overlain and punctured by the hybrid models apparent in cross-border zones of economic integration and joint venture industrial park enclaves. This paper examines the engagement between states, MNEs and intermediaries in this variegated FDI policy landscape.     

Patterns of Foreign Direct Investment in Mongolia, 1990-2003: A Research Note

This paper delineates the pattern and structure of foreign direct investment (FDI) in a land-locked transition economy, Mongolia, situated strategically between Russia and China. The assessment is based on publications of major international financial institutions, official statistical publications of the Mongolian Government, and a unique dataset of 1,035 FDI firms based on a database compiled by the Mongolian office of the World Bank. A structured analysis of the dataset and government statistical publications makes it possible to ascertain patterns with respect to FDI country origin, sectoral composition, mode of entry, firm capitalization, composition of foreign and local partners, entry date, and location of the investment (core versus periphery). Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E60, F21, P33. 5 figures, 3 tables, 34 references.     

From pioneer migration to family reunification: Polish women’s narratives of lifestyle preferences in Bologna,Italy

In the article I analyse the emergence of lifestyle considerations among former labour migrants and the importance of these new preferences for their choice to settle in the new location. The paper critically engages with the theoretical framework of ‘lifestyle migration’ and discusses its applicability to labour migrants from Central-Eastern Europe settling in Mediterranean countries. I present the interplay between economic and lifestyle reasoning based on two narrative biographical interviews with migrants in Bologna, drawing on my comparative qualitative research in Italy and the UK. The pioneer female migrants went to Italy as care workers in order to fulfill their households’ immediate economic needs. During the years of circular migration the women developed ties to Italy, but found prolonged periods of separation from their families no longer acceptable. The female migrants opted to transfer their whole households to Bologna. Based on the women’s experience and preferences, the families’ consumption preferences and leisure activities transformed in the course of settlement in the Italian city. I claim that lifestyle is a fruitful concept in researching migrants’ changing aspirations, way of life in the new location and the reasons for staying. This approach allows to go beyond the typologies based on the initial motivations for migration.     

Bereavement from afar: transnational grieving and the emotional geographies of migration

ABSTRACT

This exploratory article aims to contribute to scholarship on migrants’ experiences of bereavement and grief through the loss of a parent in their country of origin. It considers how transnational bereavement and grieving relate to the ever changing emotional geographies of migration and transnational families. Empirical material is drawn from a research project conducted with Latin American and Latino-British families living in the north of England, particularly from narratives presented by sons and daughters who had experienced such bereavements. Middle generation migrants may express: a continuing bond with a deceased parent as part of their emotional support network; regret at missing the death of the parent and the reinforcement of ambivalent emotions regarding their migration project; boundary ambiguity towards the transnational family; and a sense of physical distance from the family home as a geographical cure which allows working through the grieving process and troubling changes in family configurations.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND URBAN CONCENTRATIONS: UNBUNDLING SPATIAL LAGS*

ABSTRACT Foreign direct investment (FDI) is seen as a way to import technology and catch up with economic leaders. It is therefore important to understand why some countries attract more investments by multinationals than others. We expand the set of common determinants of FDI with urban agglomerations and ask the question whether the accessibility of market potential and the number of potential investment locations, in the shape of urban concentrations, matters, since the importance of urban agglomeration economies for FDI has not been investigated before. We show that countries with several medium‐sized cities attract more foreign investment, especially if they are close to main agglomerations, but too much concentration (primacy) reduces the inflow of FDI. Moreover, we unbundle spatially lagged FDI by including spatial lags of the determinants of FDI. It is important to disentangle such third‐country effects in order to understand how FDI flows depend on the complex ways in which multinationals fragment sales and production across countries. Using a panel of U.S. affiliates’ sales in foreign countries between 1984 and 1998, we find evidence that cities are important drivers of FDI. Furthermore, third‐country effects suggest that horizontal and complex forms of FDI coexist.     

Agglomeration economies and the location of foreign direct investment: A meta‐analysis

This paper undertakes a meta‐analysis of the effect of agglomeration economies on foreign direct investment (FDI) location. It finds strong differences in these economies arising from both measurement and study‐specific characteristics. Economies generated from domestic rather than foreign activity have the strongest effects on FDI, with the latter only significant if related to the home country of the investor. Support is also found for studies that identify different sources of agglomeration economies, although this is largely underexplored in the empirical literature. The average agglomeration economies estimate is not influenced by publication bias and indicates genuine effects for agglomeration economies on FDI location choice.     

LOCATION‐SPECIFIC HUMAN CAPITAL,LOCATION CHOICE AND AMENITY DEMAND*

ABSTRACT The role of amenities in the flow of migrants has long been a subject of debate. This paper advances an original model of amenities that work through household production instead of directly through utility. Area characteristics (amenities) affect household production, causing certain kinds of human capital investments to be rewarded more than others. Area heterogeneity thus makes such investments location‐specific. This specificity—along with a period of exogenous location—increases the opportunity costs of moving, diminishes migration flows between dissimilar locations and increases valuation of amenities that were present in the originating area. These theoretical results emphasize people's sorting across areas and thus differ from the results of the standard model of compensating differentials. Empirical tests of the model's predictions using NLSY79 data show that childhood investments affect migration flows in the way proposed by the model.     

Blending ‘home’ and ‘away’: young Israeli migrants as VFR travelers

This study explores the nexus between migration and tourism by focusing on the experiences of young Israeli migrants who engage in return-visits to their country of origin. The experiences of the migrants are examined with respect to transnational theory, VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travel and conceptualizations of ‘home’ and ‘away.’ The migrants’ sense of ‘being at home’ is deconstructed in terms of familiarity with place, privacy and situational control, and sociability in associations. The findings of this multidimensional analysis reveal that the young migrants’ experiences of ‘home’ and ‘away’ is transformed across time in accordance with their sense of adaptation in the receiving country. While in terms of familiarity with place and sociability in associations the sense of being at home is weakened considerably, it is actually strengthened in terms of privacy and situational control. These findings stress the complexity of VFR experiences in the context of transnational migration.     

Humanitarianism as conflicted care: Managing migrant assistance in EU Assisted Voluntary Return policies

Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programs occupy a central role in Europe's “management” of migration today. These state-funded programs allow migrants to meet with humanitarian counselors about the decision to return voluntarily, offering reintegration assistance and one-way travel booking to migrants' country of origin. This paper draws on interviews with practitioners at humanitarian organizations, those who counsel undocumented migrants and appeals rights exhausted asylum seekers about their decision to leave Europe via AVR, to consider the limits and potentials of humanitarian assistance for migrants in the EU's security-focused context. We query the degree to which care, as much as it is incorporated into regimes of bordering, can potentially disrupt hegemonic politics of assistance-as-governance. AVR provides a lens onto the politics of care and humanitarian assistance in migration management today, as migrants and practitioners negotiate together the decision to stay (with a limited range of legal options) or return via this increasingly relied upon policy.     

Onward Precarity,Mobility, and Migration among Latin Americans in London

Contributing to debates around the relationships between precarity, mobilities and migration, this paper examines the nature of precarity among onward Latin American (OLA) migrants as they have moved transnationally to multiple destinations from their homelands to southern Europe and onwards to London across different time periods. Drawing on primary research with over 400 OLAs, the discussion highlights how precarity maps onto onward migration trajectories in fractal rather than linear ways. In moving beyond a continuum approach to labour exploitation, the paper develops the concept of “onward precarity” to capture how migrants negotiate intersecting vulnerabilities in holistic spatio‐temporal ways as they move through different structural contexts across the world from origin, through transition to their final destination country over time. These negotiations are underpinned by multiple agentic tactics that revolve around resilience and reworking strategies as onward migrants traverse wider structures of disadvantage in situ and through mobility in different places.     

Ambiguous immigrants? Examining the changing status of the English in New Zealand

Drawing on a qualitative interview‐based study of English migrants in New Zealand, this article examines, if and how, overseas migration triggers national sentiments that were previously relatively amorphous in their country of origin. In those cases where this occurs, it analyses the diverse and contextual orientations migrants display, and discusses the empirical and analytic challenges posed when seeking to conceptualise a category of persons that have been described as ‘ambiguous immigrants’. The study concludes that research on this ambiguity contributes to debates about the relationship between dominant ethnicity and national identity while highlighting the simplicities of many concepts used to describe and analyse ‘the English’.     

Region‐specific determinants of the foreign direct investment in China

This study revisits region‐specific determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Eastern, Central, and Western China using econometric and spatial analyses. It uses a data set covering 31 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions spanning the period 2005–15, together with panel data regression. Our statistical results show that in Eastern China, FDI is significantly associated with bilateral trade, orientation towards the service industry, industrialisation level, and availability of strategic assets in the region. In Central China, FDI is mainly pulled by availability of the domestic market and strategic assets in the region. In Western China, FDI inflows are mainly determined by natural resource endowment, industrialisation level, and regional innovation and production effectiveness in information and communication technology industries. Our analysis also reveals the impact of FDI in China's regional development and its capacity to hollow out the three Chinese macro‐regions. Our findings for China lead us to suggest that those governments seeking to attract FDI should not solely rely on it to facilitate local economic development and should make use of local circumstances in combination with FDI to boost their economies.     

Racialised sexualities: the case of Filipina migrant workers in East Malaysia

In national narratives of ‘Malayness’, a specific language (Malay) and religion (Islam) have become key aspects of an identity that excludes migrants and those of ‘questionable’ sexualities. Consequently Filipina migrants working in the nightlife industries in East Malaysia have been subjected to disciplinary discourses of ethnicity and sexuality that underpin these national narratives. Attempts to tighten migration laws and curb nightlife activities have resulted in a racialisation of Filipina migrant sexualities. Using ethnographic methods, this article explains the impacts of dominant state and public discourses of migration, ethnicity and gender, which Filipinas encounter in their everyday lives in their destination country. In the process the article also reveals how Filipinas resist these discourses and hence participate in the formation of their subjectivity.     

Unwanted sea migrants across the EU border: The Canary Islands

In the early 2000s, the Canary Islands emerged as the main gateway for unwanted sea migrants from Senegal into Spain. In this paper, I draw from a year of multi-sited ethnographic work to discuss the relationship between state actions to secure the border against these migrants, on the one hand; and smugglers and migrants' efforts to subvert those actions, on the other. My argument is that the relationship between the two is mutually constitutive: anti-immigration policy is a reaction to the actions of unwanted migrants, and unwanted migrants adapt to state efforts to seal the border against unwanted migration by finding and exploiting spaces of opportunity in the border. In the context of sea migration from Senegal to the Canary Islands, 2005 marks a major shift in this relationship. That year the European Union adopted a new framework for migration control (the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility), Frontex became operational, and Spain and Senegal deepened their cooperation to stop unwanted Europe-bound sea migration. This forced unwanted migrants to find creative ways to enter EU territory. I argue that combining the institutional and migrant perspectives allows us to explore the decentering of the state in the contemporary anti-immigration border regime, the emerging spatialities of the contemporary border, and understand the migrant's journey. This perspective also illuminates the messiness, violence, and multiplicity of interests involved in the bordering of Europe.     

Destination choices of Chinese rural–urban migrant workers: Jobs,amenities, and local spillovers

Using the 2014 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, we analyze rural–urban migrant workers’ destination choices after the global financial crisis, with an emphasis on jobs, amenities, and local spillovers. By using an equilibrium‐sorting model, this paper disentangles local spillovers from local attributes in the estimation process. We employ both an artificial instrumental variable and the provincial highway passenger flow in 1979 to tackle the endogeneity issue. After controlling for the network effects of migrants from the same origin, we find a separate and strong preference for colocating with a large population of migrants, regardless of origin. The results remain robust when we take into account labor supply‐driven migration, spatial autocorrelation between provinces, different industry definitions, and regional differences within provinces. Our results imply that due to institutional barriers, the rural‐migrant community will still be a very important factor in the foreseeable future. In addition, as the ongoing industrial upgrading and transfer policies in China may lead to a westward movement of rural–urban migrants, the movement will be expedited when the older, less educated, or lower income migrants relocate.     

Migration,the Urban Periphery,and the Politics of Migrant Lives

This paper explores the politics of migration through a focus on labor migration regimes and the urban lives of migrants in the Seoul Metropolitan Region of South Korea. In particular, it draws attention to the ways in which migrant lives highlight the limits of the contemporary emphasis on control in migration management regimes. The paper contends that while migration management certainly reworks the socio‐legal status of migrants, the desire for control is often displaced in the everyday presence and practices of migrants as urban residents. In order to develop this argument I focus on the notion of the urban periphery as a spatio‐temporal configuration that manifests marginalization but is also potentially generative, innovative and destabilizing. The paper proceeds by exploring three dimensions of the periphery: (1) the mobile commons that emerges in everyday life; (2) the process of becoming undocumented and the subversion of control; and (3) the tactics of recognition that challenge the peripheral location of migrants. In each case the focus on the urban periphery draws attention to the importance of visibility and invisibility in migration, to the uneven spatio‐temporal configuration of migrant lives in the city, and to the ways in which migrant desires constitute a politics that exceeds what is normatively expected of them.     

近20年新加坡的中国新移民及其数量估算

本文研究近20年来中国移民进入新加坡的原因、过程和发展趋势,并根据历年新加坡人口统计中的常住人口和非常住人口数量、华人出生率、移民数量和族群比例等数据,推估出新加坡的中国移民新数据。结论是,近30年来,新加坡政府大规模吸收高素质移民,以弥补人口数量不足,确保华族占总人口75%和发展高新产业。进入新加坡的移民总数达164万人,占2009年新加坡居民总数的近33%。其中,华人移民约占80%,主要来自马来西亚和中国。从1990年到2009年,进入新加坡的中国移民潮逐渐加速,总量约50～60万人,约占新加坡总人口的10%～12%。