This paper argues that the persistence of greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) comes from information frictions. First, our simple social learning model shows that, through signaling effects, information frictions generate persistent greenfield FDI inflows. Second, we show empirically that...

Using an extensive data set on foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) in the Chinese mainland, we compare the sensitivities of the location choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) from six major source countries/areas (Hong Kong, Taiwan, US, EU, Japan and Korea) toward the variation in the...