The Influence of FDI on Domestic Innovation: An Investigation Using Structural Breaks

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of foreign direct investment on innovation by em-ploying the panel cointegration method incorporating multiple structural breaks and a dynamic common correlated estimation for 34 countries over the period 1991-2016. Our findings indicate that the series of innovation and foreign direct investment are stationary after considering the potential structural breaks and that the external shock is mainly from country-specific shocks. Our results also suggest that a long-run co-integrated relationship exists with one break between foreign direct investment and innovation. Furthermore, the estimation based on the dynamic common correlated estimation shows that foreign direct investment has a long-run significant positive influence on technological innovation. Our findings shed light on the importance of accounting for structural breaks when discussing the relationship between foreign direct investment and technological innovation.