F43 - Economic Growth of Open EconomiesReturn

This study assesses the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on economic growth and domestic investment in a panel of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the period of 1990–2017 by utilizing the method of fixed-effects and system generalized method of moments (GMM). The findings show that FDI inflows are positively and significantly associated with the economic growth of the host economy. When considering the origin of FDI, we find that FDI from developed countries contributes to the growth rate in the receiving economy, while FDI from developing countries shows no significant effect. Importantly, FDI does not appear to crowd in or out domestic investment. Only FDI from developed countries is associated with crowding in of domestic investment.

The study analyses the economics intuition that the domestic savings may determine the investments in a country. The assumption is tested on domestic savings between 1982 and 2016 in Southeast Asia economies in a panel regression framework. The hypothesis is that domestic savings stimulate economic growth through investment financing and, thus, the high savings rate observed in Southeast Asian countries can contribute to the outstanding GDP growth in the region. The tests sort out the significant determinants of investments. The analysis successfully indicates the significance of domestic savings beside other variables, and confirms the hypothesis, namely, the domestic savings affect investments and indirectly the economic growth, while FDI does not prove to be significant.

The article deals with the impact that the EU enlargement had on productivity of firms in accessing countries, particularly Romania and Bulgaria that accessed EU in 2007. Microeconomic data suggest that the impact of accession itself can be negative in a short run in case of countries that received promised benefits in disintegrated manner and also experienced problems with obliging requirements of EU accession that resulted in negative measures taken. The negative short run effect can hinder the benefits in the euphoria following the accession and therefore could be considered as part of accession process in certain situations.