Source and host country volatility and FDI: A gravity analysis of European investment to Middle East and North Africa

Dalila Nicet-Chenaf and Eric Rougier
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Dalila Nicet-Chenaf: Larefi - Laboratoire d'analyse et de recherche en économie et finance internationales - UB - Université de Bordeaux
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Dalila Nicet - Chenaf (bnicet@yahoo.com)

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Abstract: Macroeconomic determinants of FDI are seldom analyzed from the perspective of source countries, priority being generally given to host country characteristics. In a gravity set-up, we analyze FDI flows from European Union to MENA economies. We find that European investment to our MENA host countries is higher, the lower the source country output volatility, thereby supporting the existence of an income effect for European Transnational corporations. In the case of MENA economies, source country output volatility's adverse impact on FDI is counterbalanced by the positive attraction effect of domestic swings of activity. We also find that 1995's Barcelona agreement has reinforced MENA countries' vulnerability to European short- and medium-term macroeconomic cycles. The emergence of non-traditional sources of European FDI is, however, a positive evolution since Eastern and Central European investment to MENA countries is less sensitive to host and source country macroeconomic volatility that traditional Western and southern European sources tend to be. Our results are robust to various changes in estimator, sample composition or measurement of instability.

Keywords: Output volatility; Inflation; FDI; gravity model; source countries; European Union; MENA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara and nep-int
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Working Paper: Source and host country volatility and FDI: A gravity analysis of European investment to Middle East and North Africa (2014)
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