Associate Editors: Francesca Spigarelli (Università di Macerata) and Elisa Barbieri (Università di Udine)
Foreign direct investments (FDIs) are considered a major catalyst to development, but benefits vary across countries, sectors and local communities. When host country is a developed economy, the impact of FDIs is still debated in terms of economic development, as well as effects on employment and local knowledge.
Concerns arise usually when investors belong to emerging markets. In the last decade, several countries and local governments started to develop specific policies to attract foreign direct investments, in search for opportunities for growth or for stimulating mature industries and stagnating sectors. Sometimes they acted without considering the level of development, geographical location or industrial structure (OECD, 2008).
We welcome contributions that identify, describe and analyze the main challenges and opportunities related to the development of attraction policies for FDIs, at regional and local level.