Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149275 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6188
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Legal conflicts between multinational firms and host governments are often decided by international arbitration panels - as opposed to courts in the host country - due to provisions in international investment agreements known as Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS). Critics fear that ISDS panels favor multinational firms, and thus make governments reluctant to adopt appropriate policies (regulatory chill). In this paper I develop an economic model to define regulatory chill and to analyze the effects of ISDS. Regulatory chill occurs when losses from regulatory mismatch are intermediate rather than very high. Moreover, if national courts are more likely to decide in favor of the host government than an international court, a unilateral shift to ISDS by one country is welfare worsening for the country. The net welfare change is more favorable, and sometimes - but not always - positive, when i) (symmetric) countries switch together to an ISDS based system, and when ii) foreign investment responds elastically to profit conditions.
Subjects: 
Investor State Dispute Settlement
TTIP
regulatory chill
international investment agreement
foreign direct investment
JEL: 
F23
F53
H25
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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