RegionsТ Competition for Investment Projects in Forest Development

Abstract

The author considers the problem of competition between regions for investments. It is hypothesized that the presence of legislative stimulating benefits in a particular region, ceteris paribus, promotes investment flows in forest projects from other regions and is an instrumentl of inter-regional competition. To test the hypotheses the researcher uses a modified model with spatial weighted exogenous variables in order to assess the spatial effects. The obtained estimates indicate the presence of spatial effects, both negative (an inter-regional competition for investment) and positive (agglomeration effects). The author argues that the process of inter-regional competition for investment in projects on forest development is caused by benefits under taxes and payments into the regional budget, regulation of pricing (including actions by natural and local monopolies) and depreciation policy and solutions to put some forest projects in the list of priority ones. Along with this, the paper identifies agglomeration effects induced by a number of benefits: direct dealings in investment by financing or property contribution, subsidies, state guarantees, credit security and partial payment of interest

Keywords

• priority investment projects
• forestry complex
• legislative benefits
• spatial econometrics
• spatial effects
• competition for investment
• agglomeration effects
• region