The impact of foreign capital inflows on economic growth and employment in Egypt

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to trace the effects of both foreign direct investment (FDI) and external debt on economic growth and employment in Egypt over the 1985–2014 period. Design/methodology/approach - The empirical analysis includes three stages: an aggregate time series analysis, a panel model that includes six economic sectors and a set of single-sector models. The “autoregressive distributed lag” approach is utilized either in the time series or in the panel models. Findings - The empirical results of this research reveal that foreign investment exerts a weak positive effect on economic growth and employment in Egypt. External debt exerts an insignificant effect on economic growth and employment in the aggregate model. The sectoral analysis reveals that the effect varies greatly between sectors; the effect of FDI on output is positive in the financial, tourism and other service sectors, while it is insignificant in the agricultural, construction and manufacturing sectors. Practical implications - It is important not to depend on external debt as an easy way to obtain capital. Greater efforts should be exerted to increase the absorptive capacity of the Egyptian economy so as to benefit from the positive spillover effect of foreign investment as much as possible. Originality/value - With respect to Egypt, very limited studies have focussed on the role of external debt on growth and that of FDI and external debt on the employment level. There is no general agreement concerning the effect of FDI on economic growth. Therefore, this research explores the effect of FDI and external debt on the Egyptian economy utilizing both aggregate and sectoral data.