Foreign direct investment inflows, technological innovation, sustainable development and skilled human behavior : a multivariate granger causality study - evidence from France

The world economies have increasingly come to see FDI as a source of economic and sustainable development, income growth and skillful employment. Countries have liberalized their FDI regimes and pursued other policies of attracting investment. France too has shown remarkable growth and development in terms of International Trade, Globalization, health care services and technology etc. It has addressed the issue of how to best pursue domestic policies to maximize the benefits of foreign presence in the domestic economy. France's economy has undergone profound changes, most notably globalization, the expansion of the European Union and the development of new information and communication technologies. These regions now operate as a network of ever more numerous businesses, science, technology, culture and tourism partnerships which are seeking to increase their attractiveness, improve their competitiveness and play a full part in France's open and globalized economy. Since the onset of the global economic crisis, France has maintained its place among the leading recipients of foreign direct investment ranked ninth for 2011 in the world; the leading FDI recipients were the United States and China. Digital world today is transforming into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The latest technologies for smart phones, smart homes etc need high speed internet to be fully operational. These digital innovations and disruptors are extremely powerful and have both direct and indirect impacts on human behavior and industrial growth levels. The objective of the paper is to examine the relationship between FDI inflows (FDI), Sustainable development (SD), Technological Innovation (TI) and Skilled Human Behavior (HB) over the last decade for France. Unit root tests, vector auto regression (VAR), multivariate granger causality test and impulse-response functions are conducted to analyze the link between variables mentioned above. In order to establish the degree and nature of relationship among all the determinants simple Correlation Coefficients will be calculated. Furthermore for advanced levels of research more secondary data as per acceleration effect, time series analysis and auto correlation can be studied with various statistical tools like SPSS/ EVIEWS. The period of study will be from early 90's till present. Further FDI inflows are studied in global context and divided as per sectors like Education and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) which show high level of FDI Inflows in France and Human development Index is taken the basis for sustainable development. This study is very important to macroeconomists, financial analyst, academicians, policy makers and central bankers' officials in understanding the responsiveness of each variable and thus come up with the relevant policies so as to keep up with the changing digital economy and sustained human development that stimulates production. Over the last 10 years France has welcomed more than 320 foreign investment projects in research and development. The economic stakes are high. Foreign companies employ nearly two million people in France, accounting for one-third of exports and 20% of business expenditure on R&D. Safeguarding existing foreign operations in France and drawing in new projects to expand and modernize sites have become major challenges.