Choice Review

Anyone involved in the political battles about multinational corporations should obtain their ammunition from this book. The authors, scholars in economics, business, and even psychology, have been brought together by the International Labor Organization to write original essays on the questions of which countries provide foreign direct investment, which countries receive it, and the difference it makes. They conclude that the basic data are very inadequate--27 percent more investment is sent abroad than received (because of inconsistencies of definition and measurement)! Most foreign direct investment is done from and into fewer than ten industrialized countries. The US and Europe each now provide about as much foreign investment as they receive; only Japan receives much less than it sends out. "Flows" of foreign investment are distinguished from accumulated "stocks," though it is unclear how the value of stocks were estimated. The book is difficult to read because the relevance of much data is ambiguous, as the authors acknowledge; for nearly half the authors, English is a second language; and the essays are broken up by distracting boxed discussions. Chapter bibliographies. Upper-division undergraduate through professional. H. Kasper; Oberlin College