Amazon’s HQ2 Site Selection Criteria

The New ‘Gold Standard’ in FDI Decision-Making

Bibliographic Data

ID22018407
AuthorsAlfried Braumann (0000-0002-3361-395X, TU Wien, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume5
Issue3
Pages403-417
Publication date2020-09-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Planning (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2183-7635 • E-ISSN: 2183-7635
PublisherCogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT)
DOI10.17645/up.v5i3.3207
OpenAlexW3090397846
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited17

In 2017–2018, Seattle-based Tech behemoth Amazon executed a highly publicised location-finding process for a $5 billion investment project, dubbed ‘HQ2’. Owing to the combination of high investment volume and the company’s unique public exposure, the HQ2 process is on course to becoming a basic yardstick for future foreign direct investment (FDI) projects all over the world. This article compiles the company’s previously unpublished site selection criteria and develops an evidence-based system of investment decision arguments which is employed to test the currently dominant approaches in location decision theory—behavioural, neoclassical, and institutional. Our results identify gaps vis-à-vis this emerging ‘Gold Standard’ and we propose the addition of a fourth, project-oriented approach to theory to fill the detected shortcomings. Furthermore, this system equips policymakers with a tool to evaluate their investment attraction strategies based on the decision criteria extracted from the HQ2 process

Business · Economics · Foreign direct investment · Operations research · Political science · Public economics · Public investment · Site selection · Yardstick · Auction Theory and Applications · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Public Procurement and Policy · Public-Private Partnership Projects · Artificial Intelligence

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