A network approach to study the effects of foreign direct investment on economic growth

Authors

  • Matías Pardini Universidad de Buenos Aires (CABA, Argentina)
  • Gabriel Montes Rojas Universidad de Buenos Aires y Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CABA, Argentina)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55444/2451.7321.2021.v59.n1.36334

Keywords:

Foreign direct investment, networks, economic growth

Abstract

Empirical papers on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) produced ambiguous evidence on the sign and magnitude that it has on economic growth. This paper uses a network approach to evaluate if interconnectedness measures of FDI flows, namely network centrality, have an effect on growth. It uses a database of 175 countries for the 2001-2012 period. Results indicate that there is a negative effect of local centrality (degree) and a positive one for global centrality measures on economic growth. The latter result suggests that the ability of FDI to produce positive effects on economic growth relies on the degree of interconnectedness of the countries to others with a relatively better position in the global investment network.

Reception date: May 4, 2020
Acceptance date: October 24, 2020

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Arrow, K. J. (1969). Classificatory notes on the production and transmission of technological knowledge. American Economic Review, 51 (2), 29-35.

Acemoglu, D., Johnson S. & Robinson J. A. (2001). The colonial origins of comparative fevelopment: An empirical investigation. American Economic Review, 91(5), 1369-1401.

Alfaro, L., Chanda, A., Kalemli-Ozcan, S., & Sayek, S. (2004). FDI and economic growth: The role of local financial markets. Journal of International Economics, 64, 89-112.

Baumol, W. J. (1986). Productivity growth, convergence, and Welfare: What the long-run data show. American Economic Review, 76 (5), 1072-1085.

Bonacich, P. (1987). Power and centrality: A family of measures. American Journal of Sociology, 92(5), 1170–1182.

Borensztein, E., De Gregorio, J., & Lee, J-W. (1998). How does foreign direct investment affect economic growth? Journal of International Economics, 45, 115-135.

Chen, H. & Chen, T-J. (1998). Network linkages and location choice in foreign direct investment. Journal of International Business Studies, 29 (3), 445-469.

Crespo, N. & Fontoura, M. P. (2007). Determinant factors of FDI spillovers - What do we really know? World Development, 35 (3), 410-425.

De Masi, G., Giovannetti, G. & Ricchiuti, G. (2018). A network analysis of italian foreign direct investments. Physica A, 392, 1202-1214.

Findlay, R. (1978). Relative backwardness, direct foreign investment, and the transfer of technology: A simple dynamic model. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 92 (1), 1-16.

Freeman, L. C. (1978). Centrality in social networks conceptual clarification. Social Networks, 1(3), 215–239.

Jackson, M. O. (2008). Social and Economic Networks. Princeton University Press.

Johanson, J. & Mattson, L.G. (1987). Interorganizational relations in industrial systems: A network approach compared with the transaction-cost approach. International Studies of Management and Orgnaization, 17 (1), 34-48.

Kolaczyk, E. D. (2009). Statistical Analysis of Network Data. New York, NY: Springer Series in Statistics.

Nohria, N. & Garcia-Pont, C. (1991). Global strategic linkages and industry structure. Strategic Management Journal, 12, 105-124.

Page, L., Brin, S., Motwani, R., & Winograd, T. (1999). The PageRank citation ranking: Bringing order to the web. Stanford University Infolab.

Quah, D. T. (1996). Empirics for economic growth and convergence. European Economic Review, 40, 1353-1375.

Romer, P. (1986). Increasing returns and long-run growth. Journal of Political Economy, 94 (5), 1002-1037.

Romer, P. (1993). Idea gaps and object gaps in economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics, 32, 543-573.

Solow, R. M. (1956). A contribution to the theory of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 70 (1), 65–94.

Schweitzer, F., Fagiolo, G., Sornette, D., Vega-Redondo, F., Vespignani, A. & White, D. R. (2009). Economic Networks: the new challenges. SCIENCE, Vol 325 (5939), 422-425.

Swan, T. W. (1956). Economic growth and capital accumulation. Economic Record. 32 (2), 334–361.

Wang, J-Y. (1990). Growth, technology transfer, and the long-run theory of international capital movements. Journal of International Economics, 29, 255-271.

World Bank (2017-2018). Global Investment Competitiveness Report. The World Bank, Washington, DC.

Published

2021-12-01

Issue

Section

ARTÍCULOS

How to Cite

A network approach to study the effects of foreign direct investment on economic growth. (2021). Revista De Economía Y Estadística, 59(1), 11-35. https://doi.org/10.55444/2451.7321.2021.v59.n1.36334