Foreign direct investment and domestic innovation: Roles of absorptive capacity, quality of regulations and property rights.

Foreign Direct Investment is theoretically expected to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from the home country to the host country, however, the empirical evidence on the subject is mixed. Some studies have shown that, on one hand, as competition grows, the incentive to innovate reduces with the decrease in monopoly rents (Schumpeterian effect). On the other hand, market competition can also boost investments in R&D activities incentivized by incremental profits (Escape-Competition effect). Therefore, this study aims to explore which of these two effects dominates in the selected group of countries. This study also identifies the moderators of the relationship between FDI stock and domestic innovation. It examines the role of absorptive capacity, quality of regulations, and property rights protection in the innovative activities of the host countries. Generalized Method of Moments is used to estimate the parameters of the multivariate regression equation. The analysis is based on panel data consisting of 49 countries over 14 years. The results show that FDI has a negative relationship with domestic innovation, indicating the presence of the Schumpeterian effect. The extensions of the main models show that FDI positively affects domestic innovation in countries with higher absorptive capacity, the superior quality of regulation, and stronger protection of property rights. This study shows that the positive relationship between FDI and domestic innovation is conditional on the ability to absorb knowledge and quality of governance in the recipient countries.

Runaway pacemaker.

Runaway pacemaker is phenomenon in which pacemaker induces ventricular tachycardia as a result of some malfunction in the device. This entity is not very common in clinical practice. Normally, the pacemaker perceives the inherent cardiac impulse and hence averting the delivery of pacemaker stimulus in susceptible period of cardiac cycle. This is a case of a pacemaker-induced tachycardia (named as runaway pacemaker) in a patient with a history of Single Chamber Ventricular (VVI) pacemaker. A 75-year-old man was admitted with 3 days history of fluttering in the chest, shortness of breath, central chest and epigastric pain which radiated to the back. His medical history includes pacemaker implantation in 1996 with lead complication following which he was managed with VVI pacemaker, and the last procedure was generator change 4 years ago with no complication. Examination revealed ventricular tachycardia with ECG showing paced rhythm with ventricular pacing at the rate of 200-150/min. His pacemaker-induced ventricular tachycardia was immediately aborted after putting magnet on the device which restored his baseline rhythm with heart rate of 60/min. Pacemaker was explanted urgently with replacement of new pulse generator. The patient was discharged home with VVI pacemaker showing excellent parameters.