Trade openness, investment instability and terms-of-trade volatility

In the presence of economies of scale in the investment technology, trade openness may have non-conventional effects on the level of investment, its cyclical behavior, and the volatility of the terms of trade. Trade openness may lead to boom-bust cycles of investment supported by self-fulfilling expectations. The economy may oscillate between ‘optimistic’ expectations, ‘good’ terms-of-trade and investment boom to ‘pessimistic’ expectations, ‘bad’ terms-of-trade and investment bust. We also suggest that the likelihood of such oscillations is higher for developing than for developed economies, because the former may typically incur higher setup costs of investment. This phenomenon may help to explain the excessive volatility of the terms of trade of developing countries, relative to industrial countries.     

Trade openness,tax reform and tax revenue in developing countries

This article investigates empirically whether the effect of tax reform (involving the progressive replacement of trade tax revenue with domestic tax revenue) in developing countries' tax revenue performance (measured by tax revenue‐to‐GDP ratio) depends on the degree of trade openness of these countries. The analysis has used an unbalanced panel data set of 95 developing countries over the period 1981–2015 and the two‐system GMM approach. Results suggest that tax reform is positively and significantly associated with tax revenue performance in developing countries, with the magnitude of this positive effect increasing as countries experience a higher development level. Additionally, and more importantly, countries that further open up their economies to international trade enjoy a higher positive effect of tax reform on tax revenue than countries that experience a lower degree of trade openness. Therefore, these findings should help dissipate the concerns of policymakers in developing countries that greater openness to international trade would further erode their tax revenue, including by lowering their international trade tax revenue. In fact, the implementation of an appropriate tax reform in the context of greater trade openness would generate higher tax revenue, while concurrently allowing countries to reap the well‐known benefits of international trade.     

The simultaneous evolution of economic growth,financial development,and trade openness

This article empirically investigates the interactions among economic growth, financial development, and trade openness through simultaneous equation systems. The identification and estimation of the systems rely on the methodology of identification through heteroskedasticity. The empirical results show that each of the three variables interacts in important ways. When controlling for the reverse causation, trade promotes economic growth in high-income, low-inflation, and nonagricultural countries but has a negative impact on growth in countries with the opposite attributes. Similarly, when accounting for the feedbacks from growth, banks and stock markets have different impacts on economic growth. While banking development is detrimental to output growth, stock market development is more favorable to growth in high-income, low-inflation, and nonagricultural countries. The data also reveal coexistence of a positive effect of financial development on trade and a negative effect of trade on financial development in poorer countries. In richer countries, financial development stimulates trade openness whereas trade has an ambiguous impact on financial development.     

Trade,foreign direct investments (FDI) and income inequality: Empirical evidence from transition countries

The aim of the article is to verify whether trade and inward foreign direct investments (FDI) may affect income distribution in a sample of 17 Transition Countries (TCs) over the period 1990–2006. In line with most of the previous literature, FDI do not have significant effects on income inequalities, whereas trade, especially when occurs with developed countries, seems to be more relevant. Different results are found when we take into consideration the educational system which represents an important channel through which FDI and trade may affect inequality.     

Trade openness,urbanization and CO2 emissions: Dynamic panel data analysis of middle-income countries

Using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) approach of Pesaran, Shin, and Smith [1999. “Pooled Mean Group Estimation of Dynamic Heterogeneous Panels.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 94 (446): 621–634], this article attempts to empirically examine the heterogeneous effects of trade openness and urbanization on CO₂ emissions in 55 middle-income countries over the period from 1992 to 2012. We find that trade openness has a benign effect on the environment in the short run, but a harmful effect in the long run. Meanwhile, our results show that urbanization has a negative and significant impact on CO₂ emissions both in the short and long run, implying that urbanization improves environmental quality. The results are robust even after controlling for a number of factors such as economic or non-economic factors.     

Investigating the causality links between environmental quality,foreign direct investment and economic growth in MENA countries

This paper investigates the causal relationship between environmental quality, Foreign Direct Investment and economic growth using simultaneous-equation panel data VAR model a panel of 17 MENA countries over the period 1990–2012. Our empirical results pointed out that there is a unidirectional causality running from both FDI stocks and CO₂ emissions to economic growth. They also indicate the existence of unidirectional causality running from economic growth to CO₂ emissions. However, the results support the occurrence of unidirectional causality from FDI stocks to CO₂ emissions. Our empirical result confirms the hypothesis of neutrality for the Environment-GDP link. There is bidirectional causality from ${\text{CO}}_2$emissions and economic growth, and a bidirectional causal relationship between FDI stocks and CO₂ emissions. For the global panel, we show that the existence of a unidirectional causality running from FDI stocks to economic growth; a bidirectional causality between economic growth and CO₂ emissions; as well as a bidirectional causality between FDI stocks and ${\text{CO}}_2$emissions.     

New exports matter: Discoveries,foreign direct investment and growth,an empirical assessment for Middle East and North African countries

Export diversification has become a priority goal for the development of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. In this article, we aim at measuring both the effects of exports' diversification on growth in MENA countries and the way new exports and foreign direct investment (FDI) interact with each others in the process of growth. Although the effects of FDI on growth have been scrutinized by numerous studies up to now, the effects of diversification and discoveries in export have only very recently been assessed. But no one has made explicit the way FDI and export discoveries interact in the growth process. A model is estimated by the system-generalized method of moments and we provide robust evidence that export discovery and FDI stimulate gross domestic product (GDP) growth in our sample of countries, and that FDI does not necessarily have the same effect on growth according to the level of discovery of the country. We also show that the joint positive effect of new exports and of imports suggest that technological spillover from import but also from the integration to global value chains are likely to occur in our sample of countries.     

Financial market development in host and source countries and their effects on bilateral foreign direct investment

We study an underexplored research question, namely whether financial market development in both host and source countries has an effect on bilateral stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI) and, particularly, whether the effect of financial market development in one member of the country pair conditions the effect of financial market development in the other member. We estimate gravity-type models in a global sample of 43 source and 137 host countries over the period 2001–12. We address reverse causality concerns by restricting the sample to observations where reverse causality, if existent, should be less relevant. Our major and robust findings are that bilateral FDI increases with better developed financial markets in both the host and the source country and that for developing host countries, financial market development in source and host countries functions as substitutes for each other.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Trade Openness and Economic Growth in Ghana: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

This paper investigates the long-run impact of foreign direct investment and trade openness on economic growth in Ghana (1970–2011) within the framework of the endogenous growth literature. Adopting the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration the results suggest that the interaction of foreign direct investment and exports has been crucial in fostering growth, thus validating the famous Bhagwati hypothesis. From a policy oriented point of view, the study recommends the channeling of foreign direct investment to export-oriented sectors and the promotion of export-led growth strategies in long-term development plans.     

Developing countries in competition for foreign investment

This study analyzes the competition for foreign direct investment (FDI) among countries at different stages of development. It is assumed that domestic companies in a more-developed country use more capital in production and that wages in a less-developed country are lower. Countries can compete for FDI by increasing the supply of public inputs in the economy, in addition to (or instead of) offering subsidies or tax reliefs to foreign investors. The results reveal that if governments of competing countries are not allowed to discriminate between domestic and foreign firms, there may be situations in which a less-developed economy will attract FDI depending on the labor cost differential and the responsiveness of foreign investor's and domestic companies' output to changes in the supply of public inputs. If tax discrimination between domestic and foreign firms is permitted, both countries will optimally raise the supply of public inputs, but the more-developed country will always win the foreign investment despite higher labor costs. Thus, governments of less-developed countries may have an incentive to work on an international agreement to disallow tax discrimination.     

Trade openness and financial development in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of institutional structures

This article examines the role of institutional structures in the relationship between trade openness and financial development in sub-Saharan economies. The study is based on empirical data from sampled sub-Saharan African countries for a period of 1996–2017. The system generalized method of moment was employed to estimate the models. The findings suggest that, even though trade openness has a positive significant influence on the level of financial development in sub-Saharan African economies, this relationship is enhanced through the presence of good institutions in these economies. Thus, for these economies to realize the full benefit of the effect of trade openness on financial development, they need to strengthen their institutions.     

The impact of civil war on foreign direct investment flows to developing countries

We investigate the impact of civil war on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing countries. We employ a new data-set that disaggregates FDI inflows to primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Second, we control for a richer set of economic and institutional variables that could determine FDI inflows including population, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the degree of trade openness, exchange rate variability, inflation, the governance structure of the host country using International Country Risk Guide data and its regime type using the POLITY autocracy–democracy data. We also address the reverse causality between FDI and conflict and the potential endogeneity of explanatory variables by employing dynamic system generalised method of moments (GMM) techniques in estimation. Our results indicate that primary sector FDI flows to developing countries are not significantly affected by civil war, whereas secondary and tertiary sectors FDI are more sensitive to such outbreak, potentially leading to reversals of existing FDI. Among institutional variables, government stability and control of corruption are more significant compared to regime type, law and order, and bureaucratic quality.     

基于金融发展视角下的FDI与经济增长研究综述

众多的决策者与学者相信外商直接投资（FDI）有利于促进东道国的经济增长。但是实证研究结果却表明,FDI的经济增长效应在许多发展中国家却并不明确,主要原因在于FDI效应受到东道国自身环境和条件（即吸收能力）的制约。东道国的金融发展主要通过人力资本效应、技术创新效应、产业关联效应以及市场环境优化效应等机制对FDI与经济增长的关系产生影响。金融发展已经成为东道国FDI效应有效发挥的核心要素。也是未来FDI研究的一个重要的新方向。     

Financial Development and Economic Growth in Africa

We revisit in this paper the debate between financial development and economic growth. In contrast to previous studies examining banking related measures, we focus on the capital account and the depth of African stock markets. We examine 15 African countries from 1995 to 2010 and employ both static and dynamic panel data methods. While the former suggest weak results overall, portfolio flows and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have consistently positive effects on economic growth under endogenous stock market capitalization. These findings reinforce the view that African countries should open their equity markets to international investors and encourage FDI.     

Place,space, and foreign direct investment into peripheral cities

Perspectives drawn from the economic geography literature are increasingly used to generate insights into locational issues in international business. In this paper, we seek to integrate these literatures further by investigating the locational determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) into peripheral cities within an emerging economy. Peripheral cities in emerging economies are attracting a growing proportion of global FDI flows, but the international business literature lacks a framework for understanding subnational determinants of FDI, particularly into non-core locations. We draw on the core-periphery model to build and test theory on how spatial interdependencies between subnational locations impact on the distribution of FDI inflows into a large and heterogeneous country China. Our results show that whilst peripheral cities tend to have a negative effect on FDI, this effect is positively moderated by proximity to core cities. The results highlight the importance of considering interactions between place and space when investigating locational issues in international business.     

Productivity and trade openness in Ecuador's manufacturing industries

This study takes an empirical look at whether Ecuador's trade liberalization in the 1990s increased or decreased the productivity of Ecuadorian manufacturing establishments for the period 1997-2003. This research applies robust estimation procedures on micro-level data, controlling for a number of other economic events that may have affected productivity during the period under study. The study takes a particular look at how both exporters and import-competing sectors respond to trade openness. The results suggest evidence of a positive and significant effect of trade openness on the productivity of manufacturing industries in export-oriented industries in the years after the implementation of trade reforms, but decreasing productivity after 2000. Increased aggregate productivity might be a result of both the most productive establishments producing output, and slightly increased own-plant's productivity.     

Accounting for quality differences in human capital and foreign direct investment

This paper empirically investigates how cross-country differences in the quality of human capital, as they are captured by the conventional measures of international test score differences, influences the patterns of foreign direct investment. Using panel data covering 32 countries during the period between 1985 and 2004, this paper finds that a host country's quality of educational attainment plays an independent role in attracting foreign direct investment. In particular, the quality of human capital influences horizontal foreign direct investment, even after accounting for the roles of skill and factor endowments, trade costs, investment costs, and country-size and income effects.     

Patterns of foreign direct investment in poor countries

This paper introduces endogenous adoption costs for productive assets in a Ramsey-type growth model with international capital flows. There are two classes of productive assets: owner-specific and location-specific. Adoption costs are an increasing function of the level of technology embodied in the investor's owner-specific assets and a declining function of the host country's location-specific assets. In this setting, the observed pattern of international capital flows is consistent with diminishing returns to capital. Further, our model predicts that the sectoral allocation of foreign direct investment is similar in rich and poor countries.     

Performance feedback and location choice of foreign direct investment

Integrating the behavioral theory of the firm and the OLI paradigm, this paper studies how performance feedback affects the location choice of emerging market firms between developed countries (DCs) and less developed countries (LDCs) during the process of internationalization. Using the sample of 1,306 Chinese public listed firms which established new foreign subsidiaries between 2008 and 2019, we find that the further a firm’s performance is below aspiration, the more likely it will invest in LDCs than DCs, whereas the further a firm’s performance is above aspiration, the more likely it will invest in DCs than LDCs. In addition, technology-based capability and labor intensive production capability have moderating effects on the relationship between performance feedback and location choice between DCs and LDCs. This paper complements and extends the OLI paradigm by injecting dynamic and non-economic factors to explain OFDI location choice.