The determinants of foreign direct investment into European transition economies

Using a panel dataset of bilateral flows of foreign direct investment (FDI), we study the determinants of FDI from Western countries, mainly in the European Union (EU), to Central and Eastern European ones. We find the most important influences to be unit labor costs, gravity factors, market size, and proximity. Interestingly, host country risk proves not to be a significant determinant. Our empirical work also indicates that announcements about EU Accession proposals have an impact on FDI for the future member countries. Journal of Comparative Economics 32 (4) (2004) 775–787.     

Economic Integration and FDI: An Empirical Analysis of Foreign Investment in the EU and in Central and Eastern Europe

Recent evidence suggests that regional economic integration provides an important stimulus not only to trade, but also to FDI. In contrast, the available theory on FDI does not yet provide empirically testable propositions on the effects of concurrent trade and investment liberalisation. Moreover, given the limits of simulation models, which rely heavily upon parameter choice, in assessing the impact of such liberalisation, there is a need for empirical analysis to identify the principal features of FDI. This paper uses a gravity model approach to assess the impact of the deepening integration between the EU and the CEECs on FDI flows in terms of three key issues. First, we provide systematic estimates of the expected long-term level of FDI in the CEECs. Second, we investigate whether FDI in the CEECs, on the one hand, and source country exports and imports, on the other hand, are complements or substitutes. Finally, we enquire whether an increase in the attractiveness of the CEECs to foreign investors has affected the magnitude of FDI going to other European countries.     

The effects of transition and political instability on foreign direct investment inflows

This paper examines the effects of transition and of political instability on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to the transition economies of Central Europe, the Baltics and the Balkans. We find that FDI flows to transition economies unaffected by conflict and political instability exceed those that would be expected for comparable West European countries. Success with stabilization and reform increased the volume of FDI inflows. In the case of Balkan counties, conflict and instability reduced FDI inflows below what one would expect for comparable West European countries, and reform and stabilization failures further reduced FDI to the region. Thus, we find that the economic costs of instability in the Balkans in terms of foregone FDI have been quite high.     

FDI spillovers in new EU member states

Using an unbalanced panel of firm‐level data in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, we examine the impact of foreign firms on domestic firms’ productivity. In particular, we try to answer the following research questions: (1) Are there any spillover effects of foreign direct investments (FDI), and if so, are they positive or negative? (2) Are spillover effects more likely to occur within or across sectors? (3) Are the existence, the direction and the magnitude of spillovers conditioned by sector and firm‐specific characteristics? Our findings show that FDI spillovers exist both within and across sectors. The former arise when foreign firms operate in labour‐intensive sectors, while the latter occur when foreign firms operate in high‐tech sectors. Moreover, we find that domestic firm size conditions the exploitation of FDI spillovers even after controlling for absorptive capacity. We also detect a great deal of heterogeneity across countries consistent with the technology gap hypothesis.     

Where enterprises lead, people follow? Links between migration and FDI in Germany

Standard neoclassical models of economic integration are based on the assumptions that capital and labor are substitutes and that the geography of factor market integration does not matter. Yet, these two assumptions are violated if agglomeration forces among factors from specific source countries are at work. Agglomeration implies that factors behave as complements and that the country of origin matters. This paper analyzes agglomeration between capital and labor empirically. We use state-level German data to answer the question whether and how migration and foreign direct investment (FDI) are linked. Stocks of inward FDI and of immigrants have similar determinants, and the geography of factor market integration matters. There are higher stocks of inward FDI in German states hosting a large foreign population from the same country of origin. This agglomeration effect is confined to higher-income source countries.     

我国对外直接投资理论研究综述

对外直接投资是我国企业发展到一定阶段的必然选择，而我国关于对外直接投资的理论研究无疑对于指导我国企业的FDI活动具有重要的意义。因此本文在研究国外对外直接投资理论的基础上，着重综述了我国学者的相关研究成果．以明确以后的方向。     

Manufacturing FDI and economic growth: evidence from Asian economies

Previous empirical studies on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth generate mixed results. This article suggests that the ambiguous results might be caused by the use of total FDI. We study the heterogeneous effects of different sector-level FDI inflows on host country's economic growth. Data from 12 Asian economies over the period of 1987 to 1997 are employed. Strong evidence shows that FDI in manufacturing sector has a significant and positive effect on economic growth in the host economies. FDI inflows in nonmanufacturing sectors do not play a significant role in enhancing economic growth. Furthermore, without the decomposition of total FDI inflows, the effect of manufacturing FDI on host country's economic growth is understated by at least 48%.     

The Labor Market Effects of FDI: A Panel Data Evidence from Mexico

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the effects of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows on six labor market outcomes by using a panel data of the Mexican states from 2005 to 2015. By relying on the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator to address potential endogeneity of FDI in the labor market outcomes regressions, this study finds that the FDI inflows result in a reduction in the overall unemployment rate. Moreover, the FDI is associated with a decrease in the percentage of employed people with the need and availability to offer more working hours and an increase in the median hourly wage rate. The FDI is not likely to influence the critical employment, informal sector employment, and unemployment duration.     

The welfare effects of FDI: A quantitative analysis

Foreign direct investment (FDI) can increase productivity and wages. However, it is also often accompanied by primary income deficits as foreign-owned firms repatriate their profits. The welfare effects of FDI are thus ambiguous. A particularly illustrative example of this phenomenon are the Visegrád 4 (V4) countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia). This paper investigates whether FDI can be beneficial in the presence of profit repatriation using a general equilibrium model calibrated to the V4 economies. Counterfactual simulations suggest that the benefits of FDI outweigh the costs for these countries. On average, a 1% increase in the share of foreign firms is associated with a 0.17% increase in welfare. However, incentivising foreign firms to reinvest more of their profits domestically is, ceteris paribus, welfare-improving. A 10-percentage-point increase in the profit repatriation rate is associated with a 1.06% welfare gain on average.     

State-level FDI and within-occupation wage inequality in the United States

Our paper explores the relationship between inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and within-occupation wage inequality at the state level in the U.S. We argue that sectoral FDI may affect different occupations differently, and our study looks at possible heterogeneous effects of sectoral FDI on wage inequality for 22 occupations. Using data over 1999–2007, our results show that state-level manufacturing FDI tends to reduce wage inequality, measured by the ratio of the 90th percentile wage and the 10th percentile wage in an occupation. Manufacturing FDI is significantly associated with less wage inequality in the production occupations and the construction and extraction occupations. In contrast, non-manufacturing FDI is associated with increased within-occupation wage inequality in the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations, as well as the transportation and material moving occupations. Non-manufacturing FDI is associated with decreased wage inequality in the sales and related occupations.     

Asymmetric FDI and tax-treaty bargaining: theory and evidence

Tax treaties are often viewed as a mechanism for eliminating tax competition, however, this approach ignores the need for bargaining over the treaty's terms. This paper focuses on how bargaining can affect the withholding taxes set under the treaty. In a simple framework, we develop hypotheses about patterns in treaty tax rates. A key determinant for these patterns is the relative size of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) activity. In plausible situations, more asymmetric countries will negotiate treaties with higher tax rates. This theory is then tested using 1992 data from US and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) bilateral tax treaties. Overall, the data supports the prediction that greater asymmetric FDI activity increases the negotiated tax rates.     

FDI对中国技术进步的贡献效应实证分析

外商直接投资(FDI)的经济效应问题一直是理论有多大贡献,学者们的研究结论还存在着较大的分歧.本文运用索洛测算技术进步的"余值"方法,选取中国1985年至2004年区间样本数据作为经济变量,从宏观角度分析了FDI对中国技术进步的影响效应.得出的结论是,引进FDI对促进中国的技术进步效果甚微,其原因和对策如何,需要认真研究.     

Where a contract is signed determines its value: Chinese provincial variation in utilized vs. contracted FDI flows

There are major differences between ex ante corporate investment plans and ex post investments. The case of China is useful for understanding this problem because there is substantial time series and cross sectional variation in the ratio of utilized to contracted FDI (UC ratio), which is less than one in most province-year observations. Provinces may believe that they are rewarded for reporting higher levels of contracted FDI, which would lead to lower UC ratios and higher policy incentives in subsequent years. Alternatively, provinces may be rewarded for reporting data more accurately, which would lead to higher UC ratios and policy incentives in subsequent years. Empirical analysis supports the second, institutional theory and suggests that provinces may increase their rate of utilizing pledged FDI by strengthening their legal systems and reducing government bureaucracy.     

A portfolio approach to a cross-sectoral and cross-national investment strategy in transition economies

This paper takes a systematic look at the portfolio choice problem faced by Investment Banks or Funds investing in transition economies. We relate the performance of projects in the transition economies to the broader macroeconomic and international environments, which affect the project through their input-output structures and financial balance sheets. Among the macroeconomic determinanst of enterprise behaviour are productivity growth, real wage growth, movements in the international terms of trade, shocks to the relative price of traded and non-traded goods, domestic and foreign interest rates, currency depreciation and the rate of inflaction. We evaluate the attractiveness of alternative investment strategies and provisioning rules from the perspective of portfoio theory.     

The effects of multinationals on host economies: A CGE approach

This paper offers a new perspective regarding the effects on a host economy of the entry of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) approach, through a version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model extended to incorporate MNEs. The analysis is applied to the Czech Republic, a country that has received substantial inflows of foreign direct investment in the last few years. A special attention has been paid to the issue of profit repatriation. We find that the negative effects of profit repatriation are sizeable, and might even offset the positive impact of the entry of MNEs.     

我国外商直接投资地区分布影响因素研究——基于空间面板数据模型

外商直接投资(FDI)在我国空间分布的显著非均衡性引发了大量有关FDI区位选择的经验研究,但相关研究往往忽视了FDI的空间依赖性对其区域分布的影响.基于此,本文选取我国1990-2004年28个省区的数据资料,从地区固定效应和时间固定效应两方面对空间面板数据模型进行估计,考察FDI的空间相关性对我国FDI地区分布的影响.研究发现,空间面板数据模型对现实FDI地区分布的拟合效果更好、解释力更强;我国各省FDI的区位分布存在正向的空间相关性,相邻地区吸引外资的增加能够带动本地区吸引更多的外商投资.     

Location factors of FDI and the growing services economy1

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has increasingly shifted toward the service sector. This change in the industrial composition of FDI and the non‐tradable nature of services may have altered the importance of location factors for investment decisions. To capture potential changes in FDI determinants, a contrasting sectoral analysis is performed. Based on FDI stock data from eight new EU member states for the period 1998–2004, we implement a dynamic panel approach allowing the speed of adjustment to the equilibrium investment level to vary across sectors. Results support our assumption that investment into the service sector, which is characterized by low installation costs, adjusts much faster to its desired level than manufacturing FDI. Thus, government interventions to attract FDI are likely to boost the service sector immediately while having a slower impact on manufacturing FDI. Furthermore, as services are mostly non‐tradable, FDI into this sector is largely based on market‐seeking motives while FDI in the manufacturing sector is also driven by international price competitiveness measured by real unit labour costs.     

Foreign direct investment in economic transition: the changing pattern of investments

Foreign direct investment into transition economies is reviewed in detail, both from aggregate data and from a survey of senior managers in 117 western manufacturing companies. It is found that host country transition progress, political stability and perceived risk influence FDI inflows as well as the predominant type of investment.     

Benchmarking competitiveness in transition economies

This paper constructs an indicator for the current level of international competitiveness of countries in transition. We find that Hungary is the most competitive country in the group while Turkmenistan is the least. Competitiveness measurement, in our view, is a way to use uniform criteria to gauge the extent to which a country makes use of various levers to promote sustained improvements in its well-being. We construct our measure of competitiveness drawing upon both the popular literature on competitiveness as well as modern economic theory. The approach acknowledges the importance of synergies between firms, markets, and government and, above all, the crucial role of institutions. Our choice of variables stresses the special characteristics of transition countries. By bringing to bear all the existing data on these countries, together with new survey data collected for the purpose, we are able to go beyond the mere ranking of countries to decompose the sources of competitiveness into their constituent parts. This allows policy makers to identify areas where their countries are lagging behind relative to other countries in their region. Our indicator is also compatible with the Global Competitiveness Report series categories, thus allowing us to benchmark transition countries against the rest of the world.
JEL classification: C82, O47, O57, P27, P52.