In his new book, Harnessing Foreign Direct Investment for Development: Policies for Developed and Developing Countries, Georgetown University Professor Theodore Moran takes a close look at the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host nations and offers recommendations on how it can be channeled to benefit developing countries. Professor Moran serves on the Executive Council of Georgetown's McDonough School of Business.

"The world community need not be hesitant and defensive toward the globalization of industry under reasonably competitive conditions," Moran writes. "Quite the contrary, a more vigorous, energetic, and proactive approach to integrating global supply networks will serve the interests of firms, workers, and communities in both developed and developing countries."

Moran examines the factors that determine whether FDI will have a positive or negative impact on a host country’s welfare and economic growth. He looks at how poorer developing countries can harness the benefits from investments in manufacturing and assembly. Moran also examines FDI in natural resources and infrastructure, exploring the unique challenges to fostering investments in these sectors and analyzing how what is often considered a "resource curse" can be channeled to promote social development.

Moran also looks at the impact of outward investment on the home countries of multinationals. In addition, he looks at measures developed country governments can take to promote beneficial FDI flows, to retard or screen out harmful FDI flows, to enhance transparency, to reduce corruption, and to improve dispute settlement mechanisms. He concludes the volume with an assessment of current U.S. policies and procedures, and finds that there is a striking gap between the U.S. rhetoric of support for FDI flows that benefit developing countries and actual U.S. practices, which fail to provide support.

"Ted Moran’s penetrating yet subtle analysis exposes both the pitfalls and the potential of FDI," said Robert Z. Lawrence, Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment at Harvard University. "This study should be read and heeded by all concerned with how global engagement can promote economic development."

Theodore Moran holds the Marcus Wallenberg Chair in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where he teaches and conducts research at the intersection of international economics, business, foreign affairs and public policy. He is the founder of the Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy and serves as director, providing courses on international business-government relations and negotiations to some 600 undergraduate and graduate students each year.

About the Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business
Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business is a premier business school located in the nation's capital. Founded in 1957 to educate undergraduate business students through the integration of liberal arts and professional education, the McDonough School today welcomes approximately 1,300 undergraduates, 620 MBA students, and more than 500 participants in its executive education programs annually. For more information about the McDonough School, visit http://msb.georgetown.edu.

About Georgetown University
Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in America, founded in 1789 by Archbishop John Carroll. Georgetown today is a major student-centered, international, research university offering respected undergraduate, graduate and professional programs on its three campuses. For more information about Georgetown University, visit http://www.georgetown.edu.