Labor Skills and Foreign Investment in a Dynamic Economy : Estimating the Knowledge-Capital Model for Singapore

Singapore is an interesting example of how the pattern of foreign investment changes with economic development. The authors analyze inbound and outbound investment between Singapore and a sample of industrialized and developing countries over the p...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chellaraj, Gnanaraj, Maskus, Keith E., Mattoo, Aaditya
Language:English
Published: 2012
Subjects:
GDP
WTO
Online Access:http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20090602084519
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4143
Description
Summary:Singapore is an interesting example of how the pattern of foreign investment changes with economic development. The authors analyze inbound and outbound investment between Singapore and a sample of industrialized and developing countries over the period 1984-2003. They find that Singapore s two-way investment with industrialized nations has shifted into skill-seeking activities over the period, while Singapore s investments in developing countries have increased sharply and become concentrated in labor-seeking activities. Singapore s increasing skill abundance relative to all countries in the sample accounted for 41 percent of average inbound stocks during the period, that is, US$18 billion annually; the corresponding figure for outbound stocks was 40 percent, that is, US$5.51 billion annually.