Impact Assessment of the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) Agreement

Second, we map the agreement's mandatory and soft obligations (including best-endeavour) into advalorem equivalent reductions in the costs of multinational production. Third, the economic effects of these policy shocks are projected with a multi-region, multi-sector economic model that explicitly incorporates affiliate sales, foreign direct investment (FDI) and input-output linkages. Our benchmark simulations project that implementation of the IFD Agreement's mandatory obligations would increase global real GDP by 0.8 per cent over the next ten years, driven by a substantial expansion in global FDI flows and foreign affiliate sales. The simulations indicate that developing and low-income economies are expected to see the largest increases in GDP, since they are expected to see the largest improvement in the investment facilitation environment.