Economic Development Agreements Research Articles

Come Together, But How? Zooming Into Economic Development Collaboration Between State and Local Governments, and Nongovernmental Organizations

Economic development at the local level presents an intrinsic tension produced by competitive and cooperative dynamics. While empirical studies have identified drivers for collaboration at the local level, less is known about the scope of activities promoted by state-level agencies and the institutional mechanisms that state and local actors create to cooperate. This study exploits a unique data set created by the State of Iowa reporting the economic development agreements from 2007 to 2018. The findings illustrate how workforce development activities are the most prevalent activity while fiscal incentives are the least recurrent practice. In terms of institutional mechanisms, service contracts are used most frequently. Additionally, a state agency and nonprofit organization dyad is the most common collaboration, which highlights the role of state governments in shaping local economic development strategies. This exploration of mechanisms, activities, motivations, and duration contributes by improving theories of formal collaboration and intersectoral governance.

Developing Economies, International Investment and Investor-State Arbitration: Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitration Awards in Nigeria

The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which Economic Development Agreements are amenable to arbitration as an instrumentality for the settlement of disputes arising between State Parties and private entities such as Transnational Oil Corporations (TNOC). Findings show that Economic Development Agreements are inabitrable and when awards are made, they lack finality because ownership of the subject-matter of such agreements inheres in the sovereign party and so within the public domain. Petroleum International Agreements (PIA) as a genre of Economic Development Agreements are ill-adapted to the Private Contract Model. The study also found that the principle pacta sunt servanda cannot apply absolutely under Petroleum International Agreements because supervening circumstances which render performance impossible may compel the review of the terms and conditions of the contracts in accordance with overriding public interest clausula rebus sic stantibus.

Who's Afraid of Sunlight? Explaining Opposition to Transparency in Economic Development

AbstractFirms and governments often negotiate economic development deals, such as tax abatements, with limited transparency, using exceptions to public records laws or other strategies for nondisclosure. In this article we explore the motivations of firms for keeping economic development deals out of the public eye. We explore legal challenges to public records requests for deal-specific, company-specific participation in a state economic development incentive program. By examining applications for participation in a major state economic program, the Texas Enterprise Fund, we find that a company is more likely to challenge a formal public records request if it has renegotiated the terms of the award to reduce its job-creation obligations. We interpret this as companies challenging transparency when they have avoided being penalized for noncompliance by engaging in nonpublic renegotiations. These results provide evidence regarding those conditions that prompt firms to challenge transparency and illustrate some of the limitations of safeguards such as clawbacks (or incentive-recapture provisions) when such reforms aren't coupled with robust transparency mechanisms. We speculate that the main motivation for these challenges is to limit scrutiny of these deals that could lead to backlashes against future economic development agreements.

Overview of the Key Legal Issues Involved in Civil Law Governed Economic Development Agreements: Germany and the Netherlands

Overview of the Key Legal Issues Involved in Civil Law Governed Economic Development Agreements: Germany and the Netherlands

Political incentives and transaction costs of collaboration among US cities for economic development

ABSTRACTThis study extends research on Institutional Collective Action by testing a transaction cost explanation for self-organising economic development agreements between US cities. We offer a unique contribution to this literature by identifying how these agreements between cities with similar political institutions mitigate the transaction costs of collaboration, and how characteristics of these agreements combine with political institutions to shape collective action. The results of an empirical analysis of data collected through a survey of local officials suggest the alignment of high-powered political incentives between cities mitigates the coordination and division problems of forming a joint venture. Agreements that enable elected officials to distribute the benefits of an agreement are also found to moderate this effect.

The Relevance of Public International Law in Arbitrations concerning International Economic Development Agreements

The purpose of this article is to appraise certain fundamental aspects of international economic development agreements (EDAs)1 in the light of recent developments and their relevance to public international law. They merit consideration afresh as they are very often confronted in international arbitrations which involve a State, a State enterprise or both and which raise various issues. A public international lawyer cannot afford to ignore the importance of understanding them in the real world while dealing with the arbitration of international disputes arising out of EDAs.

Legal Protection of Economic Development Agreements

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The New Generation of Energy and Natural Resource Development Agreements: Some Reflections

The paper examines the different types of new generation agreements concerning the exploration and exploitation of petroleum, and other mineral resources such as gas, aluminum, copper, iron ore, and nickel, etc. It also attempts in this context to critically examine the questions whether and how they are different from traditional concession contracts. It examines the legal nature of the new generation agreements and compares them with other types of economic development agreements (EDAs) for a better understanding of the relationship between foreign investors and the host State.

Economic Development Agreements

Economic Development Agreements Get access Stephen I. Pogany Stephen I. Pogany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1, Spring 1992, Pages 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1093/icsidreview/7.1.1 Published: 01 March 1992

The Unilateral Change of Economic Development Agreements

IT seems appropriate to begin this article with an apology. Legal writings on economic development agreements, i.e., contracts between governments and foreign private investors, are already abundant and, as Professor Farer formulated it,' torrents of language are foaming around eminent topics like the one which is the object of this study. The efficient practitioner undoubtedly would be inclined to dismiss the problem invoked here altogether as being merely the legal academic's concern with little or no impact on reality. Does not, after all, the law in this field entirely depend on the skill and bargaining power of the negotiators and the techniques of the draftsmen of legal documents? Or, to say it in a more academic way,2 is not the iex contractus the only governing law between the parties? This thesis, as we shall see, is untenable. Economic development agreements are not situated in a legal vacuum but-at least partlygoverned by rules of international or transnational law based on the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations.3 It is true, of course, that unilateral modification or abrogation of agreements becomes relevant only in a small minority of cases when the relations of the contracting parties have reached an impasse and consensual arrangements are no longer possible. This, however, is no reason to neglect the issue. Foreign private investors in developing countries try to obtain a maximum of government guarantees for the security of their investment such as promises of non-expropriation and clauses of non-interference or legislative stability. In drafting such clauses, they should know what they can reasonably expect of them. Moreover, clarification of the legal issues may help or induce the parties to find a realistic and comprehensive basis for cooperation and thus avoid unnecessary litigation.

Economic Development Agreements--Part II--Agreements between States and Aliens; Choice of Law and Remedy

A N EARLIER article in this series posed the general problem of the necessity for foreign developmental assistance to the under-developed parts of the world, and dealt with the questions of choice of law and remedy applicable to economic development loan agreements made with these States by other States or by international organizations. Numerous policy declarations by spokesmen of States of the western world indicate that a substantial portion of the funds for economic development must come from private sources.2 From the free world perspective, an important reason in support of substantial private assistance to less developed countries is that private investment tends, though not invariably, to associate with private areas of the economy in the recipient State. This association may serve to establish and sustain the type of mixed public-private economy that western States have found conducive to maintaining a large degree of individual choice in political and economic matters. At the same time, it provides the modicum of governmental participation that seems essential for planning on a long-range national scale and assisting the economy during extreme fluctuations in the business cycle. If we conclude that private investment in the less developed countries is both an economic necessity and a desired policy approach, then it would appear desirable to identify means of encouraging its flow and assuring the performance of agreements by which such assistance is extended. A variety of means of protecting private investments in underdeveloped areas have been advanced from numerous quarters in the last decade.

Economic Development Agreements: Part II. Agreements between States and Aliens; Choice of Law and Remedy

Economic Development Agreements: Part II. Agreements between States and Aliens; Choice of Law and Remedy