IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v95y2005i2p33-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foreign Direct Investment and the Domestic Capital Stock

Author

Listed:
  • Mihir A. Desai
  • C. Fritz Foley
  • James R. Hines Jr.

Abstract

This paper evaluates evidence of the impact of outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic investment rates. OECD countries with high rates of outbound FDI in the 1980s and 1990s exhibited lower domestic investment than other countries, which suggests that FDI and domestic investment are substitutes. U.S. time series data tell a very different story, however: years in which American multinational firms have greater foreign capital expenditures coincide with greater domestic capital spending by the same firms. One dollar of additional foreign capital spending is associated with 3.5 dollars of additional domestic capital spending in the time series, implying that foreign and domestic capital are complements in production by multinational firms. This effect is consistent with cross sectional evidence that firms whose foreign operations expand simultaneously expand their domestic operations, and suggests that interpretation of the OECD cross sectional evidence may be confounded by omitted variables.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2005. "Foreign Direct Investment and the Domestic Capital Stock," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 33-38, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:95:y:2005:i:2:p:33-38
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282805774670185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/000282805774670185
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David L. Carr & James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2021. "Estimating The Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 5, pages 95-110, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Martin S. Feldstein, 1995. "The Effects of Outbound Foreign Direct Investment on the Domestic Capital Stock," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations, pages 43-66, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Feldstein, Martin & Horioka, Charles, 1980. "Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(358), pages 314-329, June.
    4. James R. Markusen, 2004. "Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633078, April.
    5. Desai, Mihir A. & Foley, C. Fritz & Hines, James Jr., 2004. "Foreign direct investment in a world of multiple taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2727-2744, December.
    6. Pol Antràs, 2003. "Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1375-1418.
    7. Feldstein, Martin & Hines, James R. & Hubbard, R. Glenn (ed.), 1995. "The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226240954, August.
    8. Desai, Mihir A. & Foley, C. Fritz & Hines, James Jr., 2004. "The costs of shared ownership: Evidence from international joint ventures," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 323-374, August.
    9. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2002. "Integration versus Outsourcing in Industry Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 85-120.
    10. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2005. "Foreign Direct Investment and Domestic Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 11717, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & Kristin J. Forbes, 2008. "Financial Constraints and Growth: Multinational and Local Firm Responses to Currency Depreciations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2857-2888, November.
    12. Martin Feldstein & James R. Hines Jr. & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1995. "The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld95-2.
    13. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:6:p:2451-2487 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2005. "Foreign Direct Investment and Domestic Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 11717, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Julian Emami Namini & Enrico Pennings, 2009. "Horizontal Multinational Firms, Vertical Multinational Firms and Domestic Investment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-004/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Desbordes, Rodolphe & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2017. "The effects of financial development on foreign direct investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 153-168.
    4. Teresa Sastre & Laura Heras Recuero, 2019. "Domestic and foreign investment in advanced economies. The role of industry integration," Working Papers 1933, Banco de España.
    5. Oksanen, Olli-Pekka, 2006. "Are Foreign Investments Replacing Domestic Investments? - Evidence from Finnish Manufacturing," Discussion Papers 1001, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    6. Luigi Infante & Tatiana Cesaroni & Riccardo De Bonis, 2020. "Firms' financial surpluses in advanced economies: the role of net foreign direct investments," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Using financial accounts, volume 51, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Arndt Christian & Buch Claudia M & Schnitzer Monika E, 2010. "FDI and Domestic Investment: An Industry-Level View," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, July.
    8. Goldbach, Stefan & Nagengast, Arne J. & Steinmüller, Elias & Wamser, Georg, 2019. "The effect of investing abroad on investment at home: On the role of technology, tax savings, and internal capital markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 58-73.
    9. Alfaro, Laura & Chen, Maggie Xiaoyang, 2014. "The global agglomeration of multinational firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 263-276.
    10. Rajesh Chakrabarti & Krishnamurthy Subramanian & Sesha Meka & Kuntluru Sudershan, 2013. "Infrastructure and FDI: Evidence from district-level data in India," Working papers 130, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    11. Pol Antràs & Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley, 2009. "Multinational Firms, FDI Flows, and Imperfect Capital Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1171-1219.
    12. Rosanne Altshuler & Jason G. Cummins, "undated". "Tax Policy and the Dynamic Demand for Domestic and Foreign Capital by Multinational Corporations," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 174, Society for Computational Economics.
    13. Gordon H. Hanson & Raymond J. Mataloni & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2001. "Expansion Strategies of U.S. Multinational Firms," BEA Papers 0012, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    14. Michael S. Delgado & Nadine McCloud, 2017. "Foreign direct investment and the domestic capital stock: the good–bad role of higher institutional quality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1587-1637, December.
    15. Soo Khoon Goh & Koi Nyen Wong, 2014. "Could Inward FDI Offset the Substitution Effect of Outward FDI on Domestic Investment? Evidence from Malaysia," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(4), pages 413-425.
    16. Joseph Francois & Bernard Hoekman, 2010. "Services Trade and Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 642-692, September.
    17. Mayer, T. & Mejean, I. & Nefussi, B., 2010. "The location of domestic and foreign production affiliates by French multinational firms," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 115-128, September.
    18. Greene, William H. & Hornstein, Abigail S. & White, Lawrence J., 2009. "Multinationals do it better: Evidence on the efficiency of corporations' capital budgeting," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 703-720, December.
    19. Fritz Foley, C. & Hartzell, Jay C. & Titman, Sheridan & Twite, Garry, 2007. "Why do firms hold so much cash? A tax-based explanation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 579-607, December.
    20. Petroulas, Pavlos, 2007. "The effect of the euro on foreign direct investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1468-1491, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:95:y:2005:i:2:p:33-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.