Analysis of the determinants of foreign direct investment in Ghana

Michael Asiamah, Daniel Ofori and Jacob Afful

Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies, 2019, vol. 26, issue 1, 56-75

Abstract: Purpose - The factors that determine foreign direct investment (FDI) are important to policy-makers, investors, the banking industry and the public at large. FDI in Ghana has received increased attention in recent times because its relevance in the Ghanaian economy is too critical to gloss over. The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of FDI in Ghana between the period of 1990 and 2015. Design/methodology/approach - The study employed a causal research design. The study used the Johansen’s approach to cointegration within the framework of vector autoregressive for the data analysis. Findings - The study found a cointegrating relationship between FDI and its determinants. The study found that both the long-run and short-run results found statistically significant negative effects of inflation rate, exchange rate and interest rate on FDI in Ghana while gross domestic product, electricity production and telephone usage (TU) had a positive effect on FDI. Research limitations/implications - The study found a cointegrating relationship between FDI and its determinants. The study found that both the long-run and short-run results found statistically significant negative effects of inflation rate, exchange rate and interest rate on FDI in Ghana whiles gross domestic product, electricity production and TU had a positive effect on FDI. Practical implications - This study has potential implication for boosting the economies of developing countries through its policy recommendations which if implemented can guarantee more capital inflows for the economies. Social implications - This study has given more effective ways of attracting more FDI into countries which in effect achieve higher GDP and also higher standard of living through mechanisms and in the end creating more social protection programs for the people. Originality/value - Although studies have been conducted to explore the determinants of FDI, some of the core macroeconomic variables such as inflation, interest rate, telephone subscriptions, electricity production, etc., which are unstable and have longstanding effects on FDI have not been much explored to a give a clear picture of the relationships. Therefore, a study that will explore these and other macroeconomic variables to give clear picture of their relationships and suggest some of the possible ways of dealing with these variables in order to attract more FDI for the country to achieve its goal is what this paper seeks to do.

Keywords: Cointegration; Determinants; Foreign direct investment; Autoregressive approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jabesp:jabes-08-2018-0057

DOI: 10.1108/JABES-08-2018-0057

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies is currently edited by Nguyen Trong Hoai and Toan Luu Duc Huynh

More articles in Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().