Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 09/2011

From the FDI Triad to multiple FDI poles?

Persephone Economou, Karl P. Sauvant

July 2011

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Abstract

Twenty years ago, in the inaugural issue of the World Investment Report, the United Nations highlighted a shift in the global pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI) from bipolar, dominated by the United States and the European Community, to tri-polar (the FDI Triad), dominated by the European Community, the United States and Japan.