Impact of foreign direct investment on economic growth in the world during 1975–2015

Abstract

The study is concentrated on examination the impact of FDI on economic growth in the World during 1975–2015. The study consists of four consecutive parts, including introduction, literature review, model and methodology, data, empirical results and conclusion. Each part of the study is focused on its own goals. According to the results of the literature review, there is positive influence of FDI on economic growth in various countries. Economic growth is one of the most important goals of any country. The country image on the international level is dependent on its economic power. Economic growth provides an opportunity to improve the living standards in the country. Most researchers conclude that there is a positive influence of FDI on the countries’ economic growth. However, the impact of FDI is strong in developing countries. Moreover, this relationship is stronger in countries with higher educational and technological level, trade openness and development of the countries’ stock markets. Economists often build regression models to estimate the relationship between the variables. In order to find the impact of FDI on economic growth, we are going to apply linear regression models. We take two variables as indicators of the countries’ economic growth, including current GDP expressed in U.S dollars, and annual GDP growth rate. Taking into account that the World’s GDP in current U.S dollar is a factor variable with the mentioned resulting variables, the regression equation looks as follows:
 The R-squared of the built model is 0.99, indicating that roughly 100% of changes in the World’s GDP is caused by the chosen factors. As it is seen from the SAS output, the residuals of dependent variable and factors variables are distributed normally among its average value. Thus, non-normality is not observed in the model. Taking into account the coefficients of the factor variables, the log GDP is most sensitive to the changes in trade as a percent of GDP. The log GDP is not quite sensitive to the changes in FDI, since the coefficient of 0.000128 means that increasing of FDI by one unit increase the logarithmic value of GDP by $ 0.000128.