What states want: Estimating ideal points from international investment treaty content

Florencia Montal, Carly Potz-Nielsen and Jane Lawrence Sumner
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Florencia Montal: 28256Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Carly Potz-Nielsen: 5635University of Minnesota
Jane Lawrence Sumner: 5635University of Minnesota

Journal of Peace Research, 2020, vol. 57, issue 6, 679-691

Abstract: When negotiating investment treaties, states balance two goals: providing strong protections for investors (investor protection), which is thought to attract foreign direct investment, and maintaining the ability to regulate their economies (regulatory autonomy). In this article we argue that treaty content can tell us about the latent preferences that states have over the level of investor protection enshrined in BITs. We use an item response theory (IRT) model and a dataset of 1,144 treaties to estimate latent preferences on this scale for signatory countries. Our measure is of use to scholars interested in studying bilateral investment treaties, international law, and foreign direct investment, and our model is of use to anyone aiming to estimate latent preferences from jointly produced manifestations.

Keywords: Bayesian item response theory model; bilateral investment treaties; latent variable estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:57:y:2020:i:6:p:679-691

DOI: 10.1177/0022343320959130

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