Is the relationship between foreign direct investment and trade different across developed and developing countries? Evidence from Korea

Empirical studies that pool data from developed and developing countries may conflate the separate roles played. The pooled coefficient estimates may significantly misrepresent the true relationships. This paper analyses the impact of outward and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows between Korea and developed and developing countries on Korean exports in 12 manufacturing sectors over the 1988–2006 period. The evidence suggests that the outward FDI to developing countries is likely to increase Korean exports to those countries than FDI to developed countries likely to increase exports to developed countries. Thus, pooling investment flows can lead to incorrect inferences.     

外商直接投资对零售业的溢出效应研究——基于省际面板数据的实证检验

运用2006—2018年省际面板数据分析对外直接投资(FDI)对中国零售业的溢出效应.结果显示,FDI对中国内资零售业的溢出效应和挤出效应并存:FDI的参与度会对中国内资零售业的技术进步产生负面影响,不利于FDI集聚性行业内溢出效应的产生;而外资零售企业的劳动生产率有利于中国内资企业的技术溢出,表现为FDI效率性行业内溢出效应.此外,企业规模在中部地区的影响更显著,资本密集度对中国内资零售业的技术进步具有显著的正向影响.     

Optimal Exit Costs of Foreign Direct Investment

This paper examines the optimal policy on exit costs of foreign direct investment for a host country considering the impact of varying income level and host country’s risk aversion against volatile FDI flows. Based on a dynamic model about the impact of the exit costs on FDI inflows and capital formation, we demonstrate that a host country should determine the exit cost considering two counterbalancing factors, that is, facilitating higher FDI inflows and reducing volatility of FDI inflows. When a host country is less vulnerable to volatility with inelastic risk aversion against FDI volatility, it is optimal for the host country with a negative income shock to take a more aggressive approach to induce FDI inflows by lowering exit costs. However, if the host country is more vulnerable to volatility with elastic risk aversion, the host country is advised to take a conservative approach by increasing exit costs to reduce FDI volatility. These findings, supported by the OECD data on 42 countries’ exits costs, implicate that developing countries are recommended to lower exit costs to induce higher FDI inflows when they are not highly vulnerable to volatility shocks.     

外向型FDI能促进母国的对外贸易吗?——基于69个国家和地区样本的GMM检验

对外直接投资对母国经济的诸多方面有正面的影响。文章选取41个发展中国家和地区以及28个发达国家和地区2002-2011年的观测样本,实证考察外向型FDI对母国对外贸易的影响。实证结果发现,不管是在发达国家样本还是在发展中国家样本,在控制了外向型FDI的内生性之后,外向国际直接投资存量对母国的进出口贸易总额没有显著影响。     

The Effect of Inflation Targeting on Foreign Direct Investment Flows to Developing Countries

Due to the many benefits that come with foreign direct investment (FDI), such as greater economic growth and technology spillovers, developing countries strive to attract this type of investment. Although the amount of FDI in developing countries has increased greatly over the past several years, not all developing countries have been successful at attracting it. A credible monetary policy, such as inflation targeting (IT), might make countries that implement it more attractive destinations for FDI flows due to the reliable macroeconomic environment created. This paper estimates the effect of IT on FDI flows to developing countries using a difference-in-differences approach and panel data for 71 countries for the period 1985 to 2013. This paper also looks at the difference between targeting and non-targeting countries in terms of FDI inflows during times of high instability. The results indicate that the adoption of IT leads to increased FDI flows to developing countries overall and, most importantly, during times of distress.

     

Is China's FDI coming at the expense of other countries?

We analyze how China's emergence as a destination for foreign direct investment is affecting the ability of other countries to attract FDI, using an approach that accounts for the endogeneity of China's FDI. Results suggest that China's rapid growth and attractions as a destination for FDI also encourages FDI flows to other Asian countries, as if producers in these economies belong to a common supply chain. There is also evidence of FDI diversion from OECD recipients. We interpret this in terms of FDI motivated by the desire to produce close to the market where the final sale takes place. Firms more inclined to invest in China for this reason are correspondingly less inclined to invest in the OECD. A detailed analysis of Japanese foreign direct investment outflows disaggregated by sector further supports these conclusions. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (2) (2007) 153–172.     

Technology diffusion and host–country productivity in South-South FDI flows

This paper investigates the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the host country's economic performance, namely, its total factor productivity (TFP). Such effects are often referred to as FDI externalities or spillover effects. In addition, the paper examines whether such spillover effects depend on the home country's income level. Our empirical findings indicate that FDI flows have positive effects on less developed countries (South countries), and that the effect of FDI flows from the developed countries (North countries) is stronger than that from less developed countries. That is, these results confirm the so-called North-South effects but provide no evidence of South-South effects. Furthermore, another channel of spillover effects is imports, which have significant effects on TFP.     

China's outward foreign direct investment in the Belt and Road Initiative: What are the motives for Chinese firms to invest?

Because of the potentially large and important effects of the extremely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by China in late 2013, considerable attention has been given to the motives for, and repercussions of, the BRI-driven infrastructural projects. Yet, the non-infrastructural outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from China to BRI countries, which varies quite substantially across different sectors and different countries, has not yet received much attention. In contrast to some recent studies showing that the massive initiative has increased China's total FDI outflows to fellow BRI countries, in this paper, based on our sector-level difference-in-differences models, we find that effect to be statistically insignificant. Yet, at the same time, we provide empirical evidence on the sectoral pattern of China's outward FDI before and after 2014 indicating that China's FDI outflows to BRI countries have significantly increased in sectors characterized by overcapacity and contributing to pollution in China, thereby demonstrating that China's BRI-driven outward FDI has been very selective in terms of sectors. We confirm these findings with a variety of robustness checks and show that it is BRI countries with relatively low institutional quality that have been more likely to receive these types of FDI from China. We thus speculate that Chinese firms have been motivated to place FDI investments in BRI countries for the sake of alleviating China's own overcapacity and pollution problems. Our findings lead us to suggest that, although these sectoral patterns are consistent with the different stages of economic development in which China and its fellow BRI-identified countries find themselves, Chinese investors and host country governments should be more concerned with the potential for unwanted side-effects of the FDI investments so that the mutually beneficial effects of the BRI can be sustained into the indefinite future among all countries involved.     

Free Trade Agreements and Foreign Direct Investment: The Role of Endogeneity and Dynamics

This article studies the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) on outbound foreign direct investment (FDI). From one perspective, FTA may promote FDI since FTA aim to promote economic activity between countries. However, lower trade barriers may lower the incentive of firms to conduct FDI. Therefore, the net impact is an empirical question. Using a panel of countries for the years 1990–2006, this article effectively controls for participation in an FTA when analyzing the impact on outbound FDI. The lengthy time series also allows us to examine effectively the dynamic nature of the relationship. Failing to account for endogeneity and dynamics would likely generate inaccurate conclusions regarding the impact of FTA on outbound FDI. Our analysis finds that outbound FDI is either unrelated to participation in an FTA or is negatively affected.     

Vertical foreign direct investment: Evidence from Japanese and U.S. multinational enterprises

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries has increased since the 1990s, but there is mixed evidence of vertical FDI associated with factor-seeking motives. This paper estimates the vertical motive of offshore production by multinational enterprises (MNEs) by exploiting past schooling characteristics as instruments for skilled-labor abundance in a host country. Using panel data on Japanese and U.S. MNEs in the 1990s, I find that skilled-labor abundance has a significantly negative impact on sales of manufacturing foreign affiliate only for Japanese MNEs. The results suggest that vertical FDI activity was more prevalent in Japanese MNEs than U.S. MNEs. A plausible explanation is that Japanese MNEs might be more vertically integrated with their offshore production than U.S. MNEs. A difference in foreign outsourcing activities could generate the observed deviation between Japanese and U.S. MNEs.     

Should I stay or should I go? Foreign direct investment,employment protection and domestic anchorage

This paper examines theoretically and empirically how employment protection legislation affects location decisions of multinationals. We depart from the “conventional wisdom” by examining not only the effect of protection on inward foreign direct investment (FDI), but also a country’s ability to “anchor” potential outward investment. Based on our simple theoretical framework, we estimate an empirical model, using data on bilateral FDI and employment protection indices for OECD countries, and controlling for other labour market institutions and investment costs. We find that, while an “unfavourable” employment protection differential between a domestic and a foreign location is inimical to FDI, a high domestic level of employment protection tends to discourage outward FDI. The results are in line with our conjecture that strict employment protection in the firm’s home country makes firms reluctant to relocate abroad and keeps them “anchored” at home.     

Human Capital and FDI Inflows to Developing Countries: New Empirical Evidence

Despite the dramatic increase in total foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing countries in the last few years, the bulk of the inflows has been directed to only a limited number of countries. It has been argued that developing countries might enhance their attractiveness as locations for FDI by pursuing policies that raise the level of local skills and build up human resource capabilities. Nevertheless, the empirical evidence in the literature in support of this recommendation for a large sample of developing countries is scant. This paper evaluates this argument in the light of the evolution in the structural characteristics of FDI and empirically tests the hypothesis that the level of human capital in host countries may affect the geographical distribution of FDI. The empirical findings are: (a) human capital is a statistically significant determinant of FDI inflows; (b) human capital is one of the most important determinants; and (c) its importance has become increasingly greater through time.     

China's post-economic reform growth: The role of FDI and productivity progress

China has become the top FDI destination among all developing countries and remained host to the world's largest share of foreign direct investment receipts since its accession to the WTO in 2001. Given the impressive growth performance and FDI influx into China, the two globalized delta economies (GDEs), Pearl River Delta (PRD) and Yangtze River Delta (YRD), have continued to out-perform all other regions in China in terms of FDI absorption and growth. The role that inward FDI plays in the process of regional development and the exact channels through which economic growth would be affected are investigated by panel data estimations of the GDEs at the city level since China's economic opening and reform. This research shows consistent results with some recent findings in other developing countries in that FDI exerted spillover effects and affected productivity (TFP) growth of the recipients. While TFP was found to be increasing overtime in the GDEs cities and facilitated economic growth in both PRD/YRD regions, major technology- and knowledge-related factors including R&D and human capital other than FDI also played critical roles in TFP enhancement and regional growth. The endogeneity of TFP and the simultaneous relations of FDI in affecting TFP and output growth are also addressed in this regard.     

The investment development path in space

Although spatial hypotheses are not new in the FDI literature, their examination in the dynamic context of the ‘investment development path’ (IDP) provides some new insights. In this paper, we examine proximity to markets at different stages of the IDP as a determinant of a country’s own foreign direct investment (FDI) pattern. Our main contribution lies in the empirical estimation of the importance of spatial determinants for the emergence of inward and outward FDI. Our results support that distance to countries at higher stages up the IDP which are better integrated into the world FDI network, has a negative effect on the probability of transition from any stage of the IDP to the next. The magnitude of the impact is generally increasing in the stage of the surrounding markets.     

Dynamic relationship between China's inward and outward foreign direct investments

This paper studies the dynamic relationship of China's inward and outward foreign direct investments (FDI). It first identifies the key determinants of China's outward FDI (OFDI) in 172 host countries during 2003–2009 using a partial stock adjustment model. It finds strong evidence of dynamic adjustment in China's OFDI stock with an agglomeration effect. The dynamic adjustment and agglomeration effects are stronger in “high-tech” countries than in “low-tech” ones but indifferent in host country's resource endowments and income levels. The empirical results suggest that there exists a substantial adjustment cost in China's OFDI and that China's existing OFDI stock can gradually adjust toward its long-term equilibrium level, which is not only greater but also more volatile than the actual stock. Of particular interest is that we find a strong and positive relationship between lagged inward FDI (IFDI) and contemporaneous OFDI, implying that capital outflow from China has been partially induced by the countries which have invested in China.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Services Trade: Evidence from Malaysia and Singapore

Abstract

Services trade is an important source of growth in Malaysia and Singapore. Both economies are export-oriented and actively court foreign direct investment (FDI) to advance their economic objectives of industrialization and economic development. This paper examines the causal linkages between inward FDI and the country's engagement in services trade in bi-variate and tri-variate VAR frameworks. The empirical findings for Singapore show evidence of bi-directional causality between inward FDI and the total trade volume in services (i.e. the absolute sum of payments and receipts) as well as between FDI and services imports (in the tri-variate specification). This may reflect her relative open foreign investment policy and free trade regime in services. For Malaysia, the evidence of causality is weaker and uni-directional, from inward FDI to services imports. These findings are consistent with the different stages of economic development and openness attained by the two sample countries, and they provide useful background for trade and foreign investment policies and development strategies.     

Structural Breaks and Spatial Linkages in FDI: Further Evidence in OECD Countries

This paper evaluates the knowledge–capital model (KCM) of foreign direct investment (FDI) as defined by Braconier et al. (Rev Int Econ 13(4):770-786, 2005). The model predicts that there are both horizontal and vertical motivations for engaging in FDI. The horizontal motives regard access to new markets in the case of trade frictions, whereas the vertical motivations imply that multinational enterprises seek to take advantage of relative skill differences in different countries. The impact of the vertical component in the KCM has been largely debated and thereby is of the greatest interest. Another issue addressed in the study is the relevance of spatial interdependencies in FDI flow. To check for these kinds of FDI determinants the KCM model is augmented with a surrounding market potential and a spatial lag term. By using large data sets for FDI stocks among OECD countries from 1982 to 2003 along with structural breaks and spatial econometric techniques, the paper evaluates the significance of traditional and spatial FDI determinants. The results show that the vertical component is indeed important, even for FDI among OECD countries, but that this importance is clearly decreasing over time. The findings point towards the existence of spatial linkages that are also compatible with export-platform motivations.     

Trade effects of foreign direct investment: Evidence for Taiwan with four ASEAN countries

Trade Effects of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence for Taiwan with Four ASEAN Countries. —This paper examines the trade effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) between Taiwan and each of the following four ASEAN countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Regression results show that Taiwan's outward FDI has a significant positive effect on exports to and imports from the host country, whereas no such effects were consistently found for inward FDI from the same country.     

Legal Traditions and Foreign Ownership Modes: Evidence from China

Using census data gathered in 2001, the present paper examines how legal traditions influence foreign investors’ choice of ownership modes in China. The study finds that, first, investors from economies sharing the same legal origin with China tend to select ownership modes with a relatively high level of foreign control. That is, such foreign direct investment (FDI) firms are more likely to be wholly owned enterprises or joint ventures with relatively large foreign shares. Second, similarities in legal enforcement between China and the home economies correlate positively with high foreign control. Third, the effects of legal traditions on ownership modes are relatively weak for new entrants compared to their forerunners, probably owing to the continuous improvement in China's business and law institutions.     

外商直接投资对工业技术溢出效应的分析——基于江苏省与广东省的比较研究

江苏和广东是我国FDI流入最为集中的地区,有关资料显示,两个地区的外资流入量占我国外资流入量的60%左右,同时流入两省2/3的资金流向工业。本文检验了1995～2006年间江苏与广东的外商直接投资对工业的技术外溢效应,同时检验了FDI外溢效应影响因素人力资本、贸易开放度和R&D对外溢效应的影响。研究认为,从总体上看两省利用FDI有正的溢出效应,但并不显著。