1、PDF外文：http:/ 外文题目： How does foreign direct investment affect economic growth 出 处： Journal of International Economics 45(1998) 115-135 作 者： E.Borensztein,J.De Gregorio,J-W.Lee &nbs
2、p; How does foreign direct investment affect economic growth? Abstract We test the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in a cross-country regression framework, utilizing data on FDI flows from industrial countries to 69 developing countries ov
3、er the last two decades. Our results suggest that FDI is an important vehicle for the transfer of technology, contributing relatively more to growth than domestic investment. However, the higher productivity of FDI holds only when the host country has a minimum threshold stock of human capital. Thus
4、, FDI contributes to economic growth only when a sufficient absorptive capability of the advanced technologies is available in the host economy. 一、 Introduction Technology diffusion plays a central role in the process of economic development. In contrast to the traditional growth framewo
5、rk, where technological change was left as an unexplained residual, the recent growth literature has highlighted the dependence of growth rates on the state of domestic technology relative to that of the rest of the world. Thus, growth rates in developing countries are, in part, explained by a catch
6、-up process in the level of technology. In a typical model of technology diffusion, the rate of economic growth of a backward country depends on the extent of adoption and implementation of new technologies that are already in use in leading countries. Technology diffusion can take place through a v
7、ariety of channels that involve the transmission of ideas and new technologies. Imports of high-technology products, adoption of foreign technology and acquisition of human capital through various means are certainly important conduits for the international diffusion of technology. Besides these cha
8、nnels, foreign direct investment by multinational corporations (MNCs) is considered to be a major channel for the access to advanced technologies by developing countries. MNCs are among the most technologically advanced firms, accounting for a substantial part of the worlds research and development
9、(R and D) investment. Some recent work on economic growth has highlighted the role of foreign direct investment in the technological progress of developing countries. Findlay (1978) postulates that foreign direct investment increases the rate of technical progress in the host country through a conta
10、gion effect from the more advanced technology, management practices, etc. used by the foreign firms.Wang (1990) incorporates this idea into a model more in line with the neoclassical growth framework, by assuming that the increase in knowledge applied to production is determined as a function of for
11、eign direct investment (FDI). The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the role of FDI in the process of technology diffusion and economic growth in developing countries.We motivate the empirical work by a model of endogenous growth, in which the rate of technological progress is the main
12、 determinant of the long-term growth rate of income. Technological progress takes place through a process of capital deepening in the form of the introduction of new varieties of capital goods. MNCs possess more advanced knowledge, which allows them to introduce new capital goods at lower cost. Howe
13、ver, the application of this more advanced technologies also requires the presence of a sufficient level of human capital in the host economy. The stock of human capital in the host country, therefore, limits the absorptive capability of a developing country, as in Nelson and Phelps (1966), and Benh
14、abib and Spiegel (1994). Hence, the model highlights the roles of both the introduction of more advanced technology and the requirement of absorptive capability in the host country as determinants of economic growth, and suggests the empirical investigation of the complementarity between FDI and hum
15、an capital in the process of productivity growth. We test the effect of FDI on economic growth in a framework of cross-country regressions utilizing data on FDI flows from industrial countries to 69 developing countries over the last two decades. Our results suggest that FDI is in fact an important
16、vehicle for the transfer of technology, contributing to growth in larger measure than domestic investment. Moreover, we find that there is a strong complementary effect between FDI and human capital, that is, the contribution of FDI to economic growth is enhanced by its interaction with the level of
17、 human capital in the host country. However, our empirical results imply that FDI is more productive than domestic investment only when the host country has a minimum threshold stock of human capital. The results are robust to a number of alternative specifications, which control for the variables u
18、sually identified as the main determinants of economic growth in cross-country regressions. This sensitivity analysis along the lines of Levine and Renelt (1992) shows a robust relationship between economic growth, FDI and human capital. We also investigate the effect of FDI on domestic investment,
19、namely, whether there is evidence that the inflow of foreign capital crowds out domestic investment. In principle, this effect could have either sign: by competing in product and financial markets MNCs may displace domestic firms； conversely, FDI may support the expansion of domestic firms by comple
20、mentarity in production or by increasing productivity through the spillover of advanced technology. Our results are supportive of a crowding-in effect, that is, a one-dollar increase in the net inflow of FDI is associated with an increase in total investment in the host economy of more than one dollar, but do not appear to be very robust. Thus, it appears that the main channel through which FDI contributes to economic growth is by stimulating technological progress, rather than by increasing total capital accumulation in the host economy. 二、 Data
