The Role of Structural Funds in Economic and Social Cohesion Process

Diana-Mihaela Țîrcă (Pociovalisteanu) () and Emilian Dobrescu ()

European Research Studies Journal, 2009, vol. XII, issue 2, 27-36

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explain Foreign Direct Investment of German enterprises. The theory of Foreign Direct Investment identifies a variety of location-specific, strategic, financial, as well as other motives which firms have in order to become multinationals. We apply the above theoretical schemata to the case of German enterprises and we also consider the evolution of German FDI in a historical context. The main conclusion of the research findings is that financial, strategic and location specific factors have been historically very influential in the decision of these firms to invest abroad. Thus both big businesses and SMEs invest mainly in Europe, with the US as the second-best location option. However, nowadays, there is a limited but essential trend that this may change. We argue that although historically location specific factors have been the most influential for FDI activity, in the current globalisation process German enterprises tend to shape their investment strategy on broader factors which influence core developments in the international economy. Thus the emergence of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) emerging markets may change for ever the character of German FDI. If however this does not occur, the German industry may face, severe competitive pressures form its foreign rivals over the next years.

Keywords: Structural funds; cohesion policy; economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H83 O11 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ersj.eu/repec/ers/papers/09_2_p2.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ers:journl:v:xii:y:2009:i:2:p:27-36

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Research Studies Journal from European Research Studies Journal
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Marios Agiomavritis ().