Impact of International Investment Agreements on Japanese FDI: A firm‐level analysis

In this study, we examine the impact of Japan's International Investment Agreements (IIAs) on the locational choice of Japanese firms' foreign direct investment (FDI) by considering the quality of IIAs. We estimate the conditional logit model covering 12,435 FDI cases by 3838 Japanese companies in 92 host countries, 16 manufacturing sectors and 12 non‐manufacturing sectors from 2000 to 2019. We found that the presence of IIAs, particularly comprehensive and high‐level ones, has a positive impact on Japan's FDI. On the contrary, the past incidence of investor–state disputes has a negative impact. These effects are found to be particularly strong for FDI by small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises. High regulatory quality is found to attract FDI, whereas the positive impact of IIAs in attracting FDI is strong in a country with a low regulatory quality.