Global Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Development: Panel Regression Approach

Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) is in the nature of international relocation of production. OFDI acts as a complementary input in the host country and hence aims at rational allocation of global resources. The pattern of economic development on a multilateral scale would, thus, determine the pattern of OFDI. We consider the effect of economic development on OFDI originated from developing countries, with the help of a set of socio-economic variables. With the help of Principal Component Analysis we construct a set of six composite indices, namely, human resource, infrastructure, labour, market, trade openness and resource, as determinants of OFDI. We use a panel regression approach both in terms of OFDI stock and flow. The period of study is 1990-2009. Empirical results indicate that developing countries outflow has not been growing significantly. The annual growth rate of global FDI outflows is 3.2 percent. FDI outflow is mainly from developed countries. Resource is most important determinant because it has elasticity greater than one. Resource and market variables indicate that in long run FDI focused on resource seeking and market-seeking.