[...]... unite the legal and economic aspects of FDI protection and to advance our understanding of these important issues 1.1 International Law and Economics The economic analysis of law is by now an integral part of many if not most areas of law It is virtually undisputed that – in addition to classical fields like antitrust law economic theories and methods have also improved the understanding of contract law,... functioning and consequences of international investment law in general and BITs in particular have not yet been analysed thoroughly from an economic point of view Indeed, there is a gap in the literature regarding the economic analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties that is worth addressing Developing a better understanding of the legal structure surrounding the protection of FDI is an important enterprise,... point of time, while FDI flows denote the amount of FDI flowing to a given country in given period of time Another important differentiation regarding the nature of FDI is between Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) and Greenfield investment While the notion of M&A is self-explanatory, Greenfield investment refers to investment that includes the establishment of new production facilities such as offices,... Mergers and Acquisitions MAI Multilateral Agreement on Investment XXII List of Abbrevations MIGA Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency MFN Most Favoured Nation MNE Multinational Enterprise NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement NE Nash Equilibrium NGO Non-Governmental Organisation OAS Organization of American States OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OPIC Overseas Private Investment. .. relevant question is whether BITs are either a manifestation of the detrimental or of the beneficial aspects of this competition The analysis shows that BITs contain elements of both aspects Furthermore, the findings of this chapter underline the importance of the consideration of public policy concerns in investment arbitrations The following two chapters focus on specific issues relating to bilateral. .. 2 3 4 UNCTAD (2009a), p.xix and p 251 Comparing FDI stocks and trade flows for the year 2006, Sauvant (2008) argues that FDI "has become the most important vehicle to bring goods and services to foreign markets." See Sauvant (2008), p.1 World Bank (2007), p.314 See UNCTAD (2010), p xvii J P Sasse, An Economic Analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties, DOI 10.1007/ 978-3-8349-6185-3_1, © Gabler Verlag... statistical methods can obviously also be employed to test hypotheses derived from theories not applying the rational choice approach, while a verbal analysis may very well be based on the rational choice approach A third important aspect is the distinction between the positive analysis and the normative analysis usually employed in economics While the positive analysis 10 11 12 13 14 Chayes and Chayes (1995),... domestic and international level have developed to mitigate this kind of risk The most important development in international law in this regard is the emergence of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) While the number of these treaties has been steadily growing since the first treaty in 1959, the number of arbitrations based on BITs and the controversies surrounding the content and impact of BITs has... direct investment "reflects the objective of obtaining a lasting interest by a resident entity in one economy (‘‘direct investor’’) in an entity resident in an economy other than that of the investor (‘‘direct investment enterprise’’) The lasting interest implies the existence of a long-term relationship between the direct investor and the enterprise and a significant degree of influence on the management... the management of the enterprise Direct investment involves both the initial transaction between the two entities and all subsequent capital transactions between them and among affiliated enterprises, both incorporated and unincorporated."18 As a practical matter, an equity share of more than 10% is usually considered the threshold for the control of an asset.19 In contrast to FDI, investment that . alt="" Jan Peter Sasse An Economic Analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties GABLER RESEARCH Ökonomische Analyse des Rechts Herausgegeben von Professor. field of international law and economics makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the functioning of bilateral investment treaties. Jan Peter