This paper examines the role financial markets play in the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic development. We model an economy with a continuum of agents indexed by their level of ability. Agents can either work for the foreign company or undertake entrepreneurial activities, which are subject to a fixed cost. Better financial markets allow agents to take advantage of knowledge spillovers from FDI, magnifying the output effects of FDI. Empirically, we show that well-developed financial markets allow significant gains from FDI, while FDI alone plays an ambiguous role in contributing to development.

Although China’s much-needed transition to a new growth path is proceeding broadly as expected, the transition is still fraught with uncertainty, including regarding the Chinese authorities’ ability to achieve a smooth rebalancing of growth and the extent of the attendant slowdown in activity. Thus, in the short run, the transition process is likely to entail significant spillovers through trade and commodities, and possibly financial channels. This note sheds some light on the size and nature of financial spillovers from China by looking at the impact of developments in China on global financial markets, with a particular emphasis on differentiation across asset classes and markets. The note shows that economic and financial developments in China have a significant impact on global financial markets, but these effects reflect primarily the central role the country plays in goods trade and commodity markets, rather than China’s financial integration in global markets and the direct financial linkages it has with other countries.

The empirical literature finds mixed evidence on the existence of positive productivity externalities in the host country generated by foreign multinational companies. We propose a mechanism that emphasizes the role of local financial markets in enabling foreign direct investment (FDI) to promote growth through backward linkages, shedding light on this empirical ambiguity. In a small open economy, final goods production is carried out by foreign and domestic firms, which compete for skilled labor, unskilled labor, and intermediate products. To operate a firm in the intermediate goods sector, entrepreneurs must develop a new variety of intermediate good, a task that requires upfront capital investments. The more developed the local financial markets, the easier it is for credit constrained entrepreneurs to start their own firms. The increase in the number of varieties of intermediate goods leads to positive spillovers to the final goods sector. As a result financial markets allow the backward linkages between foreign and domestic firms to turn into FDI spillovers.

This paper examines how financial development will facilitate FDI in order to promote economic growth. This is, the better-developed financial markets economies are able to benefit more from FDI to accelerate economic growth. This study applies regression analysis to quantitatively measure how the response of growth to FDI varies with the level of development of the financial markets over 1980-2004 periods. This paper uses OECD countries and NON-OECD countries and NON-OECD countries to represent the well and poor functioning financial market, respectively. From the regression results, we can conclude that the different structure of economic development and financial development leads to different ways in order to promote the economic growth. For the OECD countries, which financial markets are well-functioning, comparing with the NON-OECD countries, the financial market development in both banking sector and capital market can stimulate economic growth. Moreover, higher value of market capitalization (CAP) accelerates economic growth by attracting FDI inflows. For the NON-OECD countries, the financial market development and the interaction between financial market and FDI do not have any effect on economic growth. However, one-period lagged FDI plays a major role for accelerating economic growth. Therefore, in order to accelerate the economic growth, the policy maker should investigate whether a country is an OECD country or a NON-OECD country, and apply the appropriate policy. That is, if the country is an OEDC country, the policy maker should pursue the financial market development policy in order to accelerate the economic growth. Conversely, if the country is a NON-OECD country, the policy maker should pursue attracting FDI policy in order to accelerate the economic growth.

The empirical literature finds mixed evidence on the existence of positive productivity externalities in the host country generated by foreign multinational companies. We propose a mechanism that emphasizes the role of local financial markets in enabling foreign direct investment (FDI) to promote growth through backward linkages, shedding light on this empirical ambiguity. In a small open economy, final goods production is carried out by foreign and domestic firms, which compete for skilled labor, unskilled labor, and intermediate products. To operate a firm in the intermediate goods sector, entrepreneurs must develop a new variety of intermediate good, a task that requires upfront capital investments. The more developed the local financial markets, the easier it is for credit constrained entrepreneurs to start their own firms. The increase in the number of varieties of intermediate goods leads to positive spillovers to the final goods sector. As a result financial markets allow the backward linkages between foreign and domestic firms to turn into FDI spillovers. Our calibration exercises indicate that a) holding the extent of foreign presence constant, financially well-developed economies experience growth rates that are almost twice those of economies with poor financial markets, b) increases in the share of FDI or the relative productivity of the foreign firm leads to higher additional growth in financially developed economies compared to those observed in financially under-developed ones, and c) other local conditions such as market structure and human capital are also important to generate a positive effect of FDI on economic growth.

1. How can financial markets and biotechnology help the rural poor? / Ralph D. Christy [und weitere] -- 2. Financial development and growth : what role can foreign capital play? / Eswar Prasad [und weitere] -- 3. The securitization of microloans / Vicki L. Bogan -- 4. A vision for scaling microfinance : more than dollars and smarts / Deborah Burand -- 5. Innovations in index insurance for the poor in low-income countries / Jerry Skees -- 6. Overcoming poverty through improved agricultural technology / Robert W. Herdt -- 7. Agricultural biotechnology in Latin America : economic benefits, regional capacity, and policy options / Greg Traxler -- 8. Biotechnology, agriculture, and food security in Southern Africa : strategic policy challenges and opportunities / Steven Were Omamo and Klaus von Grebmer -- 9. Developing country options under TRIPS : choices to maximize biotech transfer / William Lesser and Deepthi Kolady -- 10. What matters to African firms? The relevance of perceptions data / Alan Gelb [und weiteren] -- 11. Making the most out of FDI in Africa / Norbert L.W. Wilson and Malick Diarrasouba

The challenge in the post crisis world is how business, government and academia come together to foster conditions for sustainable economic development. Understanding this requires an examination of the fundamental principles of IB, including location decisions, returns to multinationality and links between government and business, and CSR.