FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN INDONESIA: FIFTY YEARS OF DISCOURSE

The topic of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been prominent in assessments of economic development in Indonesia during the past 50 years. In this article I review Indonesia's FDI record in a historical perspective; the current urge to control FDI inflows and the need to augment domestic savings and facilitate technology transfers are not at all new in Indonesia. I draw in particular on the discourse on FDI in this journal, the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, giving special attention to contributions by this journal to the international literature on FDI and its impact. The article demonstrates that the relation between FDI and economic growth has been less straightforward in Indonesia than elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Although FDI has grown in a restrictive investment climate, on occasion it has failed to do so despite more liberal conditions. This may be attributed to the sustained role of natural resources in determining Indonesia's attractiveness as a host country of FDI.     

Sectoral FDI cycles in South and East Asia

This study aims to analyze how sectoral foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in South and East Asian economies respond to changes in the business cycles of the host countries, as measured by their output gaps. We focus on 15 economies during the period 1980–2011 and examine inflows of FDI in extractive industries, manufacturing and services in addition to aggregate FDI by using a dynamic panel Blundell–Bond GMM methodology. We find evidence of countercyclical behavior of services FDI and acyclical behavior of both extractive industries FDI and manufacturing FDI. The coutercyclical behavior of services FDI in South and East Asia has important policy implications.     

中国引资是否影响了其他地区——对东亚主要经济体的考察

本文借助动态面板数据方法,分析了中国引资规模的扩大对东亚主要经济体外资流入规模的影响。对全体样本的考察显示,中国确实对东亚主要经济体的外资流入总量产生了转移效应,但若是剔除香港地区,中国因素则转变为积极影响。我们认为,出现这一结果的原因与香港地区流入外资的"过境投资"的特殊性质有关。深入的分析表明,由于地区异质性的存在,中国因素对于各经济体的具体影响存在较大差异。     

How Does Country Risk Matter for Foreign Direct Investment?

Using the overall FDI inflows for 89 countries during the period from 1985 to 2007, we empirically investigate the effects on inward FDI of various components of political and financial risk. We examine the effects of not only the level of these risks but also their changes over time. One of the major findings is that among the political and financial risks, only the political risk is adversely associated with FDI inflows. Specifically, not only the initially low level of political risk, but also a decrease in the level of political risk helps to bring a greater amount of FDI inflows. On the other hand, lower financial risk does not attract FDI inflows, especially to developing countries. Among the various components of political risk, in the sample of developing countries only, it is found that internal conflict, corruption, military in politics, and bureaucracy quality are inversely related to inward FDI flows.     

Public Procurement and Foreign Direct Investment Across France,Germany, Italy and the UK

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important factor of economic development during the last decades. FDI contributes to the economic growth of the host economy through learning, diffusion of technology, positive externalities and capital inflows. Attracting FDI is currently an objective in its own right for many countries and this paper aims to identify policies affecting the multinational firm’s decision to establish a subsidiary. After accounting for labour productivity and trade openness, cross-section analysis, both industry-wise and country-wise, indicates that public procurement, especially “buy national” policies, and agglomeration economies are statistically significant determinants of FDI. Although our findings pertain to four large European economies, e.g. France, Germany, Italy and the UK, they constitute relevant policy guidelines for developing countries as well.      

Reviving Foreign Direct Investments in Southern Africa: Constraints and Policies

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to examine the factors that determine the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to SADC member states, which is critical for introducing widespread technological change, complementing domestic investment, improving the agility and competitiveness of firms, and providing access to skills and global markets. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, FDI flows to SADC have improved significantly increasing from an annual average of only $660 million in 1985–95 to about $5.9 billion in 2000–04. A number of countries in the region have taken additional steps to reform their policy stance in order to boost prospects for increased FDI inflows, while South Africa has now become an important growth pole for attracting foreign investment to the region. However, despite the economic and institutional reforms, especially by some of the low‐income countries in the region, the flow of FDI to SADC member states remains low and concentrated in few countries and sectors. The paper identifies a number of factors constraining FDI inflows, including the small size of the regional economy, persistent macroeconomic uncertainty in some important economies, high administrative barriers, inadequate physical infrastructure, weak financial systems, and growing perception of corruption. The paper argues that SADC member states need to strengthen efforts to enhance policy frameworks, both individually and collectively, in order to make the region attractive for foreign investors. More progress is required on improving the efficiency of institutions, macroeconomic policy co‐ordination and harmonization, opening up to trade, strengthening energy, transport and telecommunications infrastructure, putting more resources in developing local skills, reducing bureaucratic red tape and curbing corruption. Importantly, SADC member states should avoid heated competition or “bidding wars” for FDI, where countries seek to outbid each other in offering fiscal and financial subsidies to attract foreign investors. Competition for FDI between neighbouring countries is not only wasteful and costly, but may also weaken regional co‐operation and integration. Co‐operation at a SADC level may therefore help avoid costly bidding wars.     

Has China Crowded out Foreign Direct Investment from Its Developing East Asian Neighbors？

This paper applies a gravity model to investigate the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in East Asia. Economic fundamentals, such as market size, per capita income and country risk indicators, economic and cultural ties, exchange rate volatilities and information asymmetry are found to be important determinants for FDI. Globally, the inward FDI among high-income OECD economies declined significantly on average over the period of 1990-2003, whereas the inward FDI of the high-income OECD economies in emerging market economies gained substantially. In the East Asian region, the ASEAN-4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) received above-average inward FDI from the high-income OECD economies after controlling for their economic fundamentals. By contrast, China's FDI from the high-income OECD economies is below average relative to its economic fundamentals. Therefore, it is difficult to establish that China has crowded out FDI from its developing ASEAN neighbors.     

Heterogeneous effects of bilateral investment treaties

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are an increasingly used policy instrument to encourage FDI inflows, particularly inflows into developing countries. In this paper we estimate a gravity model of FDI flows from a sample of OECD countries to a broader sample of developing economies, examining the impact of BITs on these flows. BITs are signed between highly heterogeneous country-pairs, with important differences found in terms of the institutional and economic distance between BIT signatories. These differences may help explain the mixed results on the effects of BITs on FDI flows in the existing literature, with our exploration of non-linearities in this relationship suggesting that the effects of BITs are increasing in the difference in GDP and GDP per capita between source and host. BITs appear to have no impact upon FDI flows for country-pairs that are too dissimilar in terms of the strength of their political institutions.     

Spillovers from foreign direct investment in services: Evidence at sub-sectoral level for the Asia-Pacific

We take a sectoral level approach to analyzing the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. We disaggregate FDI first by manufacturing versus services, then within services by financial services, trade services, and business services. We consider the effects of FDI inflows on growth of GDP per capita, then distinguish between growth in manufacturing and services value added per capita. Our data sample comprises 14 Asia Pacific economies for the period 1985–2012 to which we apply a dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimation technique. Services FDI as a whole is found to have a significantly positive impact on GDP growth while manufacturing FDI is found to have no effect. The impetus for growth from services FDI traces to financial services in particular, acting not only directly on service sector output but through manufacturing sector output as well. By contrast, trade services FDI is found to have a significantly negative effect on manufacturing output with no significant effect on services output. Foreign participation in trade services may act to expose domestic manufacturers to international competition and may also lead to domestic consolidation to take advantage of economies of scale.     

Global Foreign Direct Investment Flows: The Role of Governance Infrastructure

It is widely argued that a country’s economic performance over time is determined to a great extent by its political, institutional and legal environment. We refer to these institutions and policies as the governance infrastructure of a country. We utilize newly developed indices to examine the effects of governance infrastructure on both foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and outflows for a broad sample of developed and developing countries over 1995–97. In addition, we examine the role of other forms of infrastructure including human capital and the environment. The results clearly indicate that governance infrastructure is an important determinant of both FDI inflows and outflows. Investments in governance infrastructure not only attract capital, but also create the conditions under which domestic multinational corporations emerge and invest abroad. It would appear that investments in governance infrastructure are subject to diminishing returns, so that the benefits, in terms of inflows, are most pronounced for smaller and developing economies.     

多维视角下FDI流入的中国贸易条件效应

最近十几年,FDI流入对中国所产生的贸易条件效应出现了新的变化。FDI流入对中国产生了"工资外溢"效应,但并没能通过该效应改善其价格贸易条件;FDI流入没有从根本上改善中国的贸易结构,从而导致较大的价格贸易条件波动性。FDI流入的大幅增加,使得中国对外贸易出口数量也大幅增加,从而在很大程度上弥补了中国价格贸易条件的恶化,带来了其收入贸易条件的改善。相对而言,FDI流入对中国的单要素及多要素贸易条件的改善幅度远小于收入贸易条件,因此,中国在大量引入FDI的同时,应大力提高生产率和技术水平,实现其单要素贸易条件和双要素贸易条件的改善最大化。     

Foreign capital flows and economic growth in East Asian countries

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the effect of various types of capital flow on the growth process of the East Asian countries, including China. The empirical analysis was based on dynamic panel data and we found; first, that domestic savings contribute positively to long-term economic growth. Second, we confirmed that FDI is growth enhancing and that its impact is felt both in the short and long run. Additionally, FDI influence on growth is much higher than domestic savings. Third, short-term capital inflow has adverse effect on the long-term as well as short-term growth prospects and it appears to be sensitive to long-term capital inflows. Fourth, long-term debt has positive effect on growth but its effect does somewhat disappear in the long-term. By and large, the observed positive contribution of FDI in the growth process of East Asian economies is a robust finding. From policy perspective, the evidence convincingly suggests that countries that are successful in attracting FDI can finance more investments and grow faster than those that deter FDI.     

The Chinese electricity industry: supply capacity and its determinants with reference to OECD countries

Empirical evidence suggests that China has benefited from foreign direct investment (FDI). An important question that remains unanswered is whether China has benefited more from FDI than other countries in general, and other transition and developing countries in particular. This paper investigates this issue by performing a meta-analysis on a sample of 67 country-specific studies yielding 137 observations that have gauged the link between FDI and measures of economic growth. The results suggest that the impact of FDI is, on average, more positively significant for China than for the full sample of countries, but that the difference between China and other transition economies is less clear.     

日本引进外国直接投资与提高经济活力分析

20世纪90年代中期前后,日本政府设立了专门机构并制定和实施了专门的计划来吸引外国直接投资,从而加大了引进外国直接投资的力度,外国直接投资的流入量也在不断增加。尽管在日本外国直接投资流出量和流入量不平衡以及流入量相对较少的状况没有根本改观,但是,逐渐增加的对日直接投资还是给东道国经济注入了新的活力,除了资金、技术和管理方法等经营资源流入以外,在振兴地方经济、提高企业全要素生产力和解决雇佣问题等方面也起到了非常重要的作用。     

人民币实际汇率变动与FDI流入结构：理论模型与实证分析

随着FDI流入我国规模的扩大,引资结构也发生了很大的变化。同时,伴随着我国经济实力的增强,FDI流入已从高速成长期进入成熟期,因此,人民币汇率变动对FDI的影响也表现出一定的复杂性。将FDI流入我国的类型划分为贸易型与非贸易型,从投资商谋求利润最大化的微观视角,建立人民币汇率变动与不同类型的FDI之间关系的理论模型。进一步地,利用2006-2011年的月度数据对理论模型的观点进行了验证。研究结果显示,我国制造业FDI与服务业FDI均与人民币汇率呈现正相关关系,但是短期还表现为一定的负相关性。两行业FDI流入成为人民币汇率变动的重要因素。     

Foreign Direct Investment and Income Inequality in Southeast Asia: a Panel Unit Root and Panel Cointegration Analysis, 1990–2013

This paper examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and income distribution in the host country as measured by the Gini coefficient. After providing some background and reviewing the extant literature, it undertakes a panel unit root and cointegration analysis that tests whether FDI has a non-linear impact on income inequality in seven selected Southeast Asian countries over the period 1990 to 2013. The paper finds strong evidence for panel cointegration using the Pedroni Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) tests. Thus, it proceeds to utilize the group-mean fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) procedure to generate long-run estimates that are unbiased and consistent. The FMOLS estimator is also extremely accurate even in panels with very heterogeneous serial correlation dynamics, fixed effects, and endogenous regressors. The results confirm the hypothesis that FDI inflows tend to raise income inequality in the short run but reduce it in the long run. In this study, the Gini index starts decreasing after FDI inflows as a percentage of GDP reaches 5.6. The fact that the Gini coefficient reaches its maximum at a relatively low level of FDI inflows suggests that sample countries are endowed with substantial absorptive capacity. In other words, they will shift into the new technological paradigm quickly, thus supporting pro-globalization claims that, on balance, FDI is more beneficial than harmful.     

Do contagion effects exist in capital flow volatility?

The cross-border transmission of a financial shock has been a subject of rich literature. While a large number of studies have focused on the phenomenon of strong co-movements of asset prices and capital flows in the event of financial stress, very few discussed the contagion or spillover effects in terms of capital flow volatility. This paper is one of the first attempts to assess, empirically, whether or not there is a global and regional spillover effect in the volatility of capital flows to emerging and developing countries. Based on the sample of 49 emerging and developing countries for the period 1980–2009, the empirical results suggest strong and significant contagion effects in the volatility of capital flows to individual economies. The magnitudes of contagion vary depending on the type of capital flows, whether it is foreign direct investment (FDI) or portfolio and other investment (mostly bank lending). The findings also suggest the volatility dynamics of gross flows is different from that of net flows. The volatility of net inflows is more exposed to intra-regional contagion compared to that of gross inflows.     

中国三大都市圈利用外商直接投资的相对规模——市场经济体制转型以来的比较研究

本文采用联合国贸易和发展会议关于外商直接投资(FDI)的相对规模指标,测算了1992年我国市场经济体制转型以来,首都圈、长三角及珠三角这三大都市圈FDI流入量占固定资产形成总额的比例、FDI存量与GDP的比值、人均FDI流入量等利用FDI的相对规模水平,并与全国及世界水平进行了比较。研究表明,三大都市圈利用FDI的相对规模水平总体而言高于全国水平;以相对规模指标衡量,珠三角FDI在经济总量和投资中的地位较长三角和首都圈更为重要;与珠三角和长三角相比,首都圈FDI在其经济总量和投资中的地位尚不突出;在世界范围以人均FDI流入量考量,三大都市圈需进一步扩大利用FDI的规模。     

Capital flows and real exchange rates in emerging Asian countries

This paper examines the impact of capital flows on real exchange rates in emerging Asian countries during 2000–2009 using a dynamic panel-data model. The estimation results show that the composition of capital flow matters in determining the impact of the flows on real exchange rates. Other forms of capital flow, especially portfolio investment, bring in a faster speed of real exchange rate appreciation than foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the magnitude of appreciation among capital flows is close to each other. The increasing importance of merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in FDI in the region makes these flows behave closer to other forms of capital flow. The estimation results also show that during the estimation period, capital outflows bring about a greater degree of exchange rate adjustment than capital inflows. This evidence is found for all types of capital flow. All in all, the results indicate that the swift rebound of capital inflows into the region could result in excessive appreciation of (real) currencies, especially when capital inflows are in the form of portfolio investment.     

The determinants of bilateral FDI: Is Asia different?

Intra-Asian foreign direct investment (FDI) is dominated by flows from high technology economies to medium technology economies, while FDI elsewhere primarily consists of flows among high technology economies. This distinctive pattern is not due simply to differences in the relative distribution of Asian FDI recipients by technology, or to systematic differences in Asia's technology characteristics. A gravity model analysis is used to explore whether Asian FDI patterns differ significantly from those elsewhere, and if so, in what ways. The results show that Asian FDI flows, in contrast to other FDI flows, systematically favor hosts with relatively low technology achievement and relatively strong intellectual property rights regimes. This type of “Asian exceptionalism” is consistent with “flying geese” theories that have argued that Asian development is the result of technology flows among economies that occupy nearby rungs of the technology ladder.