open-end investment company: see mutual fund.

closed-end investment company: see mutual fund.

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), specialized agency of the United Nations. Formed in 1988, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., it is a member of the World Bank Group (see International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and membership in the MIGA is open to all World Bank members. The agency, which has 154 member nations, encourages foreign investment in developing countries by providing political-risk insurance, protecting investors against losses resulting from such noncommercial risks as transfer restriction, expropriation, breach of contract, and war and civil disturbance. In addition, the agency provides information on investment opportunities and technical assistance to investors and member states; it also mediates investment disputes and administers claims. As of 2001, MIGA had issued more than 500 guarantees, providing more than $7.7 billion in coverage, and facilitating nearly $39 billion in investment.

International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), specialized agency of the United Nations. A member of the World Bank Group (see International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), it was formed in 1966 and has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. In an effort to help promote increased flows of international investment, ICSID assists in the mediation or conciliation of investment disputes between governments and private foreign investors. Participation in such arbitration is voluntary. Normally the parties are among the agency's 148 member states or citizens of those states, but in special circumstances nonparticipating states or individuals from such states may be accepted as mediating parties. An autonomous international organization, ICSID has close links with the World Bank; it operates through both an administrative council, chaired by the World Bank's president, and a secretariat.

European Investment Bank, nonprofit bank created in 1958 by the six founding countries of the European Economic Community (now part of the European Union [EU]). The bank makes or guarantees loans to EU members, principally for projects that will contribute to regional development within the union. Some loans are also made to nonmembers, including countries of the Mediterranean region and central and E Europe and, under the Lomé Convention and Cotonou Agreement, developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

or closed-end trust

Financial organization that pools the funds of its shareholders and invests them in a diversified portfolio of securities. It differs from a mutual fund, which issues units representing diversified holdings rather than shares in the company itself. Investment trusts have a fixed number of shares for sale; their price depends on the market value of the underlying securities and on the demand for and supply of shares. The first modern investment trusts were formed in England and Scotland as early as 1860. Many early U.S. investment trusts failed with the collapse of the stock market in 1929, but others have since prospered under stricter federal regulation.

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Precision casting for forming metal shapes with minutely precise details. Casting bronze or precious metals typically involves several steps, including forming a mold around the sculptured form; detaching the mold (in two or more sections); coating its inside with wax; forming a second mold, of heat-resisting clay, around the wax shell, and filling the interior with a clay core; baking the assembly (hardening the clay and melting the wax, which escapes through openings in the outer mold); pouring molten bronze into the space vacated by the wax; and breaking the mold to expose the cast form. In modern foundries, plastics, or occasionally frozen mercury, are used instead of wax. Seealso lost-wax casting, die casting.

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Firm that originates, underwrites, and distributes new security issues of corporations and government agencies. The Banking Act of 1933 required the separation of investment banking and commercial banking functions. Investment banks operate by purchasing all the new securities issued by a corporation at one price and selling fractions of the new issue to the investing public at prices high enough to yield a profit. The investment bank is responsible for setting the public offering price, which it bases on probable demand and assessments of the economic climate. A syndicate of investment banking firms underwrites and distributes most security issues in order to divide the risk of the new issue. An initial public offering (IPO) refers to the issuance of the first public shares of a formerly nonpublic company. Seealso bank; central bank; savings bank; security.

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Process of exchanging income for an asset that is expected to produce earnings at a later time. An investor refrains from consumption in the present in hopes of a greater return in the future. Investment may be influenced by rates of interest, with the rate of investment rising as interest rates fall, but other factors more difficult to measure may also be important—for example, the business community's expectations about future demand and profit, technical changes in production methods, and expected relative costs of labour and capital. Investment cannot occur without saving, which provides funding. Because investment increases an economy's capacity to produce, it is a factor contributing to economic growth.

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