The Association of Economic Crises and Investor-State Arbitration Cases

  • Bellak, C. (Contributor)
  • Markus Leibrecht (Contributor)

Activity: Talk or presentationScience to science

Description

The number of investor-state arbitration disputes has been on the rise since the mid-1990s, but their determinants are still not fully understood. This study empirically examines the association of economic crises with investor-state arbitration claims. Economic crises frequently lead to regulatory
changes which, in turn, may breach protection standards provided to international investors by international investment agreements (IIAs). We use a unique country-dyadic dataset containing 961 investor-state arbitration claims over the 1987-2017 period. We find that episodes of economic crises
are positively associated with the number of investor-state arbitration cases. Furthermore, our results indicate that strength and timing of the crisis impact varies across different types of economic crisis and across countries with weak and strong institutions. Inflation and exchange rate-based crises show
a lower time lag compared to economic growth crises. The impact of sovereign debt crisis is strongest. Taken together our investigation suggests that governments risk paying compensation to foreign investors for their actions in times when public spending is needed in other areas.
Period3 Jan 20205 Jan 2020
Event titleASSA 2020 Annual Meeting
Event typeUnknown
Degree of RecognitionInternational