Do institutions still matter for investors? Impact of institutional determinants on investment inflows into European economies

Abstract

Institutional quality is commonly cited as a reason that investment infl ows still vary across European countries, despite their economic stabilization following the tumultuous years in the early 1990s. This article tests empirically whether institutional quality has any bearing on the level of investment infl ows into selected groups of European countries. The role of institutions is assessed using Economic Freedom indices from the Heritage Foundation. We construct a panel dataset from 2000–2015 for 35 European countries to apply a fixed-effects and generalized method of moments model framework in the regression benchmark with the metrics from the Heritage Foundation. Results show that although institutional quality has some impact on the level of investment, it is less significant than expected and far less than suggested by the existing theoretical literature. Macroeconomic fundamentals matter more than do institutional factors.