IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iek/wpaper/0705.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Foreign Direct Investment and Country-Specific Human Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Jinyoung Kim

    (Department of Economics, Korea University)

  • Jungsoo Park

    (Department of Economics, Sogang University)

Abstract

Workers who are educated abroad acquire human capital specific to the country of foreign study (for example, language capital and country-specific knowledge on firm organization and on social system) which makes them more productive than domestically educated workers when both types of workers are employed by subsidiaries of multinational firms headquartered in the country of foreign study. An increase in foreign-educated labor in an FDI-host country thus attracts more FDI from the country of foreign study. We find evidence from bilateral FDI and foreign-student data for 63 countries over the period of 1963-1998 that strongly supports this prediction. Our findings suggest that foreign-educated labor may account for a sizable portion of growth in FDI flows during the sample period.

Suggested Citation

  • Jinyoung Kim & Jungsoo Park, 2007. "Foreign Direct Investment and Country-Specific Human Capital," Discussion Paper Series 0705, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    • Handle: RePEc:iek:wpaper:0705
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ.korea.ac.kr/~ri/WorkingPapers/w0705.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James R. Markusen & Anthony J. Venables, 2021. "Multinational firms and the new trade theory," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 3, pages 47-67, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Sebastian Edwards, 1990. "Capital Flows, Foreign Direct Investment, and Debt-Equity Swaps in Developing Countries," NBER Working Papers 3497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1990. "Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 92-96, May.
    4. Eaton Jonathan & Tamura Akiko, 1994. "Bilateralism and Regionalism in Japanese and U.S. Trade and Direct Foreign Investment Patterns," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 478-510, December.
    5. Root, Franklin R & Ahmed, Ahmed A, 1979. "Empirical Determinants of Manufacturing Direct Foreign Investment in Developing Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(4), pages 751-767, July.
    6. James R. MARKUSEN, 2021. "Multinationals, Multi-Plant Economies, And The Gains From Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 1, pages 3-24, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Bruce A. Blonigen, 2019. "Firm-Specific Assets and the Link Between Exchange Rates and Foreign Direct Investment," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foreign Direct Investment, chapter 3, pages 89-120, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Hines, James R, Jr, 1996. "Altered States: Taxes and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in America," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1076-1094, December.
    9. G. D. A. MacDougall, 1960. "THE BENEFITS and COSTS OF PRIVATE INVESTMENT FROM ABROAD: A THEORETICAL APPROACH," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 36(73), pages 13-35, March.
    10. Noorbakhsh, Farhad & Paloni, Alberto & Youssef, Ali, 2001. "Human Capital and FDI Inflows to Developing Countries: New Empirical Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(9), pages 1593-1610, September.
    11. Goldberg, Linda S & Kolstad, Charles D, 1995. "Foreign Direct Investment, Exchange Rate Variability and Demand Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(4), pages 855-873, November.
    12. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeremy C. Stein, 1991. "Exchange Rates and Foreign Direct Investment: An Imperfect Capital Markets Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1191-1217.
    13. Ronald W. Jones, 1967. "International Capital Movements and the Theory of Tariffs and Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 81(1), pages 1-38.
    14. S. Lael Brainard, 1993. "A Simple Theory of Multinational Corporations and Trade with a Trade-Off Between Proximity and Concentration," NBER Working Papers 4269, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 1994. "The role of human capital in economic development evidence from aggregate cross-country data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 143-173, October.
    16. Barrell, Ray & Pain, Nigel, 1996. "An Econometric Analysis of U.S. Foreign Direct Investment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 200-207, May.
    17. James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2001. "General-Equilibrium Approaches to the Multinational Firm: A Review of Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 8334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Wheeler, David & Mody, Ashoka, 1992. "International investment location decisions : The case of U.S. firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 57-76, August.
    19. Zhang, Kevin Honglin & Markusen, James R., 1999. "Vertical multinationals and host-country characteristics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 233-252, August.
    20. Cushman, David O, 1985. "Real Exchange Rate Risk, Expectations, and the Level of Direct Investment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(2), pages 297-308, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mariya Neycheva, 2015. "Impact of Secondary and Tertiary Education on Economic Growth: a Co-integration Model for Bulgaria," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 82-106.
    2. Shah, Mumtaz Hussain, 2016. "The Effect of Macroeconomic Stability on Inward FDI in African Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 82014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jeffrey A. EDWARDS & Cephas B. NAANWAAB & Alfredo A. ROMERO, 2017. "Effect of FDI on real per capita GDP Growth: A Rolling Window Panel Analysis of 60 countries, 1982-2011," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 17(1), pages 19-36.
    4. Elisabetta Lodigiani & Luca Marchiori & I-Ling Shen, 2016. "Revisiting the Brain Drain Literature with Insights from a Dynamic General Equilibrium World Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 557-573, April.
    5. Konara, Palitha & Wei, Yingqi, 2019. "The complementarity of human capital and language capital in foreign direct investment," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 391-404.
    6. Amir Rahman & Rafi Farooq & Khalid Ashraf Chisti, 2023. "Linear and non-linear linkage between human capital and foreign direct investment inflows into APEC countries: an evidence from panel data," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(7), pages 1-25, July.
    7. Veasna Kheng & Sizhong Sun & Sajid Anwar, 2017. "Foreign direct investment and human capital in developing countries: a panel data approach," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 341-365, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2001. "General-Equilibrium Approaches to the Multinational Firm: A Review of Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 8334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bruce Blonigen, 2005. "A Review of the Empirical Literature on FDI Determinants," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 33(4), pages 383-403, December.
    3. Chiara Franco & Francesco Rentocchini & Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti, 2008. "Why do firms invest abroad? An analysis of the motives underlying Foreign Direct Investments," Department of Economics Working Papers 0817, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    4. Fung , K.C. & Korhonen, Iikka & Li, Ke & Ng, Francis, 2008. "China and central and eastern European countries : regional networks, global supply chain, or international competitors?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4689, The World Bank.
    5. repec:zbw:bofitp:2008_009 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Xing, Yuqing & Zhao, Laixun, 2008. "Reverse imports, foreign direct investment and exchange rates," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 275-289, March.
    7. Chen, Guo, 2013. "Health costs, factor productivity and foreign direct investment flows," Master's Theses and Plan B Papers 157717, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    8. Isabel Faeth, 2009. "Determinants Of Foreign Direct Investment – A Tale Of Nine Theoretical Models," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 165-196, February.
    9. David M. Gould & Congyan Tan & Amir S. Sadeghi Emamgholi, 2014. "Attracting Foreign Direct Investment," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 15(2), pages 133-174, September.
    10. Fung , K.C. & Korhonen, Iikka & Li, Ke & Ng, Francis, 2008. "China and central and eastern European countries : regional networks, global supply chain, or international competitors?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4689, The World Bank.
    11. Manop Udomkerdmongkol & Holger Görg & Oliver Morrissey, 2006. "Foreign Direct Investment And Exchange Rates: A Case Study Of U.S. Fdi In Emerging Market Countries," Discussion Papers 06/05, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    12. World Bank, 2013. "Trends and Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in South Asia," World Bank Publications - Reports 16522, The World Bank Group.
    13. Bilgili, Faik & Tülüce, Nadide Sevil Halıcı & Doğan, İbrahim, 2012. "The determinants of FDI in Turkey: A Markov Regime-Switching approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1161-1169.
    14. Sekkat, Khalid, 2012. "Manufactured Exports and FDI in Southern Mediterranean Countries: Evolution, determinants and prospects," CEPS Papers 6849, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    15. Noor Zahirah Mohd Sidek & Mohammed Yusoff & Qaiser Munir, 2009. "Exchange rate misalignment and capital inflows: An endogenous threshold analysis for Malaysia," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 2700-2711.
    16. Aizenman, Joshua, 2003. "Volatility, employment and the patterns of FDI in emerging markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 585-601, December.
    17. Salvador Barrios & Holger Görg & Eric Strobl, 2003. "Multinational Enterprises and New Trade Theory: Evidence for the Convergence Hypothesis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 397-418, October.
    18. Andrzej Cieślik, 2020. "What attracts multinational enterprises from the new EU member states to Poland?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(2), pages 253-269, June.
    19. Yao, Shujie & Wang, Pan, 2014. "Has China displaced the outward investments of OECD countries?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 55-71.
    20. Syarifuddin, Ferry, 2020. "The Dynamics of Foreign Direct Investment and Exchange Rates: An Interconnection Approach in ASEAN," MPRA Paper 104596, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Manop Udomkerdmongkol & Oliver Morrissey & Holger Görg, 2009. "Exchange Rates and Outward Foreign Direct Investment: US FDI in Emerging Economies," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 754-764, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    foreign direct investment; multinational firm; human capital; foreign education; students abroad;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iek:wpaper:0705. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kim, Jisoo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ierkukr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.