Foreign Direct Investment, Growth and Convergence Hypothesis: A Cross Country Analysis

This study investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth by using seven years average annual data of 129 countries from the period of 2003 to 2009. Results indicate the significant positive relationships between foreign direct investment and economic growth in all countries, as well as in high, middle and low income countries. The foreign direct investment is contributing more in low income countries as compare to middle and high income countries. Results of unconditional convergence indicate that convergence exist in all, low, middle and high income countries. Results confirm that countries are coming together with respect to per capita income. Results of conditional convergence based on foreign direct investment suggest that the low and middle income countries are converging each other more rapidly. In high income countries the initial per capita income is remains negative and significant but the coefficient is almost similar in both conditional and unconditional models. This shows that chances of convergence in high income countries remain steady in the presence of foreign direct investment. On the other hand, in all countries model, coefficient is almost 60 percent higher in conditional model as compare to unconditional model. This indicates that with the existence of foreign direct investment, the overall countries are converging with the higher rate. In the light of above argument we can suggest to host country’s to make unproblematic policies to attract foreign direct investment to make efficient utilization of resources and, reduce output gap in the country.