scholarly journals Human Capital Reputation as an Antecedent of Foreign Direct Investment Market Entry in Zimbabwe

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 185-199
Author(s):  
Tafadzwa Matiza ◽  
Sandra Perks

 This paper examines the influence that the reputation of Zimbabwe’s human capital has as an antecedent of FDI market entry opportunities in the country. By synthesizing nation branding, behavioural finance and foreign direct investment theory, this paper contributes to the growing body of knowledge in human capital as a determinant influencing foreign investor behaviour within an African economic context. Empirical data was generated from a self-administered online survey of a purposively sampled population of 305 foreign investors within the Zimbabwean context. Exploratory factor analysis extracted the items that constituted the Zimbabwean human capital construct, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients being utilized to measure the reliability of the measuring instrument. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment coefficients and multiple regression analysis were employed to further analyze the data. The results revealed that foreign investors considered the availability of a sustainable, highly productive, skilled, retainable and inexpensive workforce, as the influential human capital attributes they considered for FDI to Zimbabwe. The empirical evidence further affirmed that the reputation of Zimbabwe’s human capital is an antecedent for resource- and efficiency-seeking FDI typologies to Zimbabwe. As a result, practical guidelines are provided for the Government of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Investment Authority on the potential development and promotion of Zimbabwe’s human capital for the purpose of positively influencing investor behaviour, thereby attracting FDI to the country. 

Author(s):  
Rima H BinSaeed

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with its developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure has shown a major progress in business opportunities for overseas investors. Saudi Arabia’s education sector is one of the most attractive investment opportunities for the foreign investors Earlier in 2019, 9 new foreign education enterprises were granted investor licenses, amounting to a total of $141mn of investment deals. The Saudi government introduced Saudi Vision 2030, an aspiring development plan that foresees vital prospects for foreign investors in the regions of education, housing, health and energy, amongst others. In 2016, Saudi Arabia permitted the procurement of 100% of assets by foreign investors in retail and wholesale trade. A privatisation program has also been introduced. The government also attempts to attract FDI in the regions of renewable energy and entertainment. A foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a vital role in local and international economy. Several opportunities and ventures are encouraged by Saudi Arabia to improve the standard of business and economical environments. To accomplish the finances for the projects SAGIA, the lawful authority is there to smooth the progress of investments, which encourages Saudi FDI prospective to grow simultaneously. FDI has a greater scope for diverse businesses and investing in to underdeveloped industrial sectors. FDI plays an important role in boosting the economy of Saudi Arabia by managing international investors who shares the huge portion of 34% in General GDP (Gross domestic product) of Saudi Arabia. This paper aims to review the literature to shed light on the steps taken by the government to increase FDI in the country and what are the current trends that are helping to fulfil VISION 2030.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anshuman Kamila ◽  
Mitali Chinara

Developing countries often consider foreign direct investment (FDI) as an engine to boost economic growth. Therefore they try to promote investment inflow by various means. One approach is to offer investment guarantees to foreign investors using Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). Following international best practice, India has signed a number of BITs to stimulate inflow of FDI. Till date, the Government of India has signed BITs with 83 countries. These BITs were largely negotiated on the basis of the Indian Model BIT of 1993. There have been recent moves that point in the direction of India fundamentally altering the text of its BITs with countries, including calling off existing BITs and approving a new model BIT. However, concerns have been raised as to the possible pernicious impact of these changes on the inflow of FDI into India. This paper investigates whether the concern is warranted at all – by asking if BITs significantly impact the inflow of FDI. It is established that BIT is indeed a veritable boost to FDI inflow, and the estimated coefficient remains significant and robust across econometric specifications. Therefore, a note of caution is sounded for the rejigging exercise involving BITs that has been initiated by India.


2014 ◽  
Vol 675-677 ◽  
pp. 1797-1809
Author(s):  
Kuo Cheng Kuo ◽  
Sue Ling Lai ◽  
Khunlaphat Chancham ◽  
Ming Liu

This research studies the causal relationship between energy consumption, gross domestic product (GDP), and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Germany for a period of 1971-2010. The empirical results reveal that there is a unidirectional causality running from GDP to energy consumption and from GDP running to FDI in Germany. This is due to the highly rising trends of economic activities in the country which can lead to the expansion in energy consumption. As there is an increase in economic activities within the country, then the growth rate will be in the rising path. As a result, the foreign investors will see the promising future and then invest in the host country. The conservative energy policy is recommended to support the energy saving because it will have little or no adverse effect on GDP. The energy efficiency should be applied by encouraging the use of renewable energy sources in economic activities as an alternative to stimulate the economic growth of the country. Also, the public expenditure should be expanded to increase the country’s economy and attract foreign investors. In addition, the government should support for the service industry such as insurance, finance and banking, and tourism because this type of industry does not consume as much energy as the manufacturing industry does in the overall manufacturing processes. Besides, the government should provide tax credit for the manufacturers who can fulfill the energy efficiency for their operation.


2004 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radovan Kovacevic

The empirical literature on the growth impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) suggests a strong positive relationship between the two. Yet, the lack of evidence of a clear causality from FDI to growth impedes our ability to firmly conclude that FDI inflows are a driver and not just a consequence of higher economic growth. Just as a higher return on investment typically attracts more fixed investment, it should be no surprise that it also attracts more foreign investors. Having said that, we need to acknowledge that the difficulty of finding unambiguous evidence of causality from FDI to growth does not refute the notion that such a relationship nevertheless exists. As the growth literature suggests, many different factors combine to create an environment conducive to higher economic growth. Proper policies and institutions have been found to be particularly important over longer periods of time. In this context, we need to view FDI from a broader perspective than its direct and immediate impact on growth itself. Could it not be the case, for example, that foreign investors are more demanding than indigenous firms as regards a stable and favourable policy environment, good infrastructure and an appropriate human capital stock? If governments introduce policies and create institutions with the purpose of attracting FDI, they may create an environment more generally favourable to growth even though some of this growth is not the result of FDI per se. The evidence is stronger that FDI has been boosting growth directly in Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) than in the 15 countries of the European Union (EU-15). The reason, as we have argued, is that while these countries needed to bridge the technology gap to the more advanced countries, they nevertheless met some key conditions - especially in terms of human capital - which helped them bridge this gap more quickly with the help of FDI. In addition, the sheer magnitude of net FDI inflows helped sustain a higher level of domestic investment than would have been possible on the basis of domestic saving and debt-creating capital inflows alone. While FDI is expected to continue to contribute to economic growth in the CEE countries that have joined the EU, it is less clear whether the economic gains from FDI will be as high as during the transition from plan to market. The more the new EU members come to resemble EU-15 countries in terms of inward FDI stocks as a share of GDP, productivity, efficiency and level of technology, the less likely it is that FDI will have a positive influence on economic growth beyond what is observed in more advanced market economies. That said, FDI and the associated activities of transnational corporations will undoubtedly remain an important welfare-enhancing force - both inside and outside an enlarged European Union.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-229
Author(s):  
Arthur Benedict ◽  
Kyei Baffour Tutu ◽  
Afenya Millicent Salase

In pursuant to sustainable economic growth on the ticket of FDI-led growth hypothesis, the government of Ghana has instituted a myriad of thoughtful policy reforms to help boost the economy to realize a self-sustaining economic growth. To some extent, the policies might have paid off as the country was named the highest recipient of FDI in West Africa in 2018. However, the supposed upsurge in the inflow of foreign direct investment in the country and its expected long-run spillover benefits have not been tangibly felt in the region as the economy continues to oscillate. Therefore, this study utilized two methods; the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and the variance decomposition method (VDM) to empirically examine economic growth of Ghana as a function of foreign direct investment (FDI) whiles controlling for exchange rate, financial development, trade oppeness and employment rate. The results of the study endorses the FDI-led growth for Ghana by indicating that a positive long run causal impact flows from FDI to economic growth. The findings from the VDM test affirm the results are robust and reliable. Therefore, the study suggests that government should amplify FDI inflow via policies like incentives to draw more foreign investors directly into other sectors other than the conventional sectors gratified by foreign investors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Irakoze ◽  
Baorong YU

This study analyzes how Foreign Direct Investment affects the rate of economic development among nations in the EAC with the empirical evidence of Burundi. The paper indicates that there is a link between foreign direct investment(FDI), gross domestic product(GDP), human capital, and openness with support of yearly time-series data from 1989 to 2017. The results from the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) analysis technics discover that all the variables in long-term they move together. The findings also discovered that there is short-term causality running from GDP and human capital to FDI and no short-run causality found from openness to FDI as a result of Burundi’s policies that do not implement market seeker FDI. For VECM validation, the paper went through some post estimation diagnostic tests such as Lagrange multiplier tests and Jarque-Bera test, the results did not indicate any autocorrelation among the variables as the residuals were normally distributed. Openness being an important factor to attracting foreign investors, it is very crucial for Burundi to revise its trade policies and encourage a conducive environment that promotes foreign investment penetration by promoting and encouraging both domestic and foreign investors and keep improving human capital for more FDI attraction as a goal for Burundi economic growth.


2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Brooks

AbstractPolitical scientists and economists have long been interested in the role of special interests in the policymaking process. In the past few years, a series of important new books have argued forcefully that the lobbying activities of economic actors have an important influence on the prospects for war and peace. All of these analyses claim that whether economic actors enhance or decrease the likelihood of conflict ultimately depends on the domestic political balance between economic actors who have a strong vested interest in pushing for peace versus those that do not. I advance two contrary arguments. At least among the advanced states, I posit there are no longer any economic actors who will be favorable toward war and who will lobby the government with this preference. All of the identified mechanisms that previously contributed to such lobbying in these states have been swept away with the end of colonialism and the rise of economic globalization. In particular, I show that the current structure of the global economy now makes it feasible for foreign direct investment to serve as an effective substitute for conquest in a way that was not possible in previous eras. My second argument concerns those economic actors in advanced states with a preference for peace. I posit that it has become unnecessary for them to directly lobby the government to avoid war on economic grounds because economic globalization—the accumulation of decisions by economic actors throughout the globe—now has sufficiently clear economic incentives for leaders.


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