Nita Rudra
Associate Professor of International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh

“Good for the Goose, Bad for the Flock? Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Developing Countries (with Special Focus on India)”

Thursday, May 12, 2011
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Social Sciences Building (SSB), Room 107

Register at: http://iicas.ucsd.edu/speaker-series/registration.html

Surprisingly little research investigates the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the well-being of the poor. Rudra’s study seeks to fill this gap by analyzing the impacts of FDI on access to potable water. Evaluating improvements (or not) to the provision of potable water provides a more complete assessment of the well-being of the poor, an approach strongly endorsed by development scholars. Rudra draws from existing theories in international economics and political economy to predict that the flow of foreign capital reduces access to potable water in developing countries and thereby, hurts the poor. To evaluate her theoretical predictions, Rudra analyzes two distinct datasets: one consisting of a cross-national, time-series sample of 103 developing countries; the other is comprised of subnational data on India's FDI inflows. This is the most comprehensive panel data on state-level FDI flows, water access, local government spending patterns and subnational conflict-mediating institutions ever assembled for a developing country. The Indian case provides a natural experiment to assess if and how the recent surge of multinational investments has impacted disadvantaged populations in an industrializing nation. Her major finding is that greater FDI inflows are robustly associated with lower access to potable water in developing economies. In India, Rudra finds that states which attracted higher levels of FDI are experiencing a considerably worse water situation relative to states with less FDI. She further provides evidence that suggests part of the explanation for the variation in outcomes amongst countries- particularly those receiving similar levels of FDI- is that government incentives to regulate multinational water activities tend to be weaker in countries (and Indian states) with greater socioeconomic diversity.

Nita Rudra is an Associate Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include the impact of globalization on social welfare expenditures and the poor in developing countries, the political foundations of different welfare regimes, and the causes and effects of democracy in developing nations. Her most recent works appear in the Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Studies in Comparative International Development, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization and International Studies Quarterly. She has a book with Cambridge University Press entitled: Globalization and the Race to the Bottom Paradox in Developing Countries: Who Really Gets Hurt? She recently completed a one-year fellowship awarded by the Fulbright-Nehru Foundation at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore India. She has also been a recipient of the International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, which placed her at the Social Development Department of the World Bank for one year.

More info:
http://iicas.ucsd.edu/speaker-series/pia.html

The IICAS PIA and IR/PS ILAR 2010-2011 Joint Speaker Series at UC San Diego is sponsored by the Project on International Affairs (PIA) at the Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS), and the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation (ILAR) at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS).

Event questions:
iicas-events@ucsd.edu
http://iicas.ucsd.edu