IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jknowl/v16y2025i2d10.1007_s13132-024-02288-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investment Flows, Talent Inflows: Unraveling the Spatial Spillover Effects of FDI on College Students’ City Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Meng Cai

    (Nanjing University)

  • Jianguo Xie

    (Nanjing University)

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between foreign direct investment and a city’s ability to attract college students from the perspective of spatial spillovers. Using data from Chinese cities spanning 2011–2019, we employ spatial econometric modeling to analyze the spatial spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on improving cities’ ability to attract college students. Our findings indicate significant spatial dependence for both FDI and the ability to attract college students. FDI in neighboring cities significantly enhances the focal city’s capacity to attract students. Capital stock, technology, and consumption emerge as the primary mechanisms driving this effect. The study offers policy implications on how cities can effectively harness the spatial spillover effects of FDI to improve their attractiveness to students amid intense competition for talent.

Suggested Citation

  • Meng Cai & Jianguo Xie, 2025. "Investment Flows, Talent Inflows: Unraveling the Spatial Spillover Effects of FDI on College Students’ City Choice," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 16(2), pages 9847-9872, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:16:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s13132-024-02288-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s13132-024-02288-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13132-024-02288-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13132-024-02288-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feng, Shuaizhang & Guo, Naijia, 2021. "Labor market dynamics in urban China and the role of the state sector," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 918-932.
    2. Hall, Stephen G. & Tavlas, George S. & Wang, Yongli, 2023. "Drivers and spillover effects of inflation: The United States, the euro area, and the United Kingdom☆," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Yao Amber Li & John Whalley & Shunming Zhang & Xiliang Zhao, 2012. "The Higher Educational Transformation of China and Its Global Implications," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Christine T. Ennew & David Greenaway (ed.), The Globalization of Higher Education, chapter 10, pages 135-162, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Yiqing Xie & Xiaobo Yu & Zhihong Yu & Yu Zhou, 2024. "Spatial outward FDI: Evidence from China's multinational firms," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 574-603, May.
    5. Bao, Xiaohua & Deng, Jianpeng & Sun, Haoyu & Sun, Jin, 2022. "Trade policy uncertainty and foreign direct investment: Evidence from China’s WTO accession," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    6. Rong, Shu & Liu, Kai & Huang, Si & Zhang, Qi, 2020. "FDI, labor market flexibility and employment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    7. Yuandi Wang & Lutao Ning & Jian Li & Martha Prevezer, 2016. "Foreign Direct Investment Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation in Chinese Regions: The Role of Regional Industrial Specialization and Diversity," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(5), pages 805-822, May.
    8. Lei, Xiao & Chen, Xueli & Zhang, Bin, 2024. "Unleashing the spillover potential: Exploring the role of technology-seeking investment in driving green innovation of host countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    9. Rui Zhang & Changxu Ji & Wenhuan Zhao & Ziyang Chen, 2024. "Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Knowledge Transfer to Villagers Working in Rural Tourism: a Multiple-Case Study in China," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 3551-3599, March.
    10. Cai, Meng & Cui, Riming & Li, Dan, 2023. "Trade with innovation benefits: A re-appraisal using micro data from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Feng, Shuaizhang & Han, Yujie & Qiu, Huanguang, 2021. "Does crop insurance reduce pesticide usage? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Lijun Li, 2023. "Big data visualisation in regional comprehensive economic partnership: a systematic review," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    13. Hou, Lei & Li, Kunpeng & Li, Qi & Ouyang, Min, 2021. "Revisiting the location of FDI in China: A panel data approach with heterogeneous shocks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 221(2), pages 483-509.
    14. Sisi Zhang, 2014. "Wage shocks, household labor supply, and income instability," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 767-796, July.
    15. Alessandra Faggian & Rachel S. Franklin, 2014. "Human Capital Redistribution in the USA: The Migration of the College-bound," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 376-395, October.
    16. Anthony Goerzen & Christian Geisler Asmussen & Bo Bernhard Nielsen, 2024. "Global cities, the liability of foreignness, and theory on place and space in international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 55(1), pages 10-27, February.
    17. James P. LeSage & R. Kelley Pace, 2008. "Spatial Econometric Modeling Of Origin‐Destination Flows," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 941-967, December.
    18. Adamu Jibir & Musa Abdu & Abdullahi Buba, 2023. "Does Human Capital Influence Labor Productivity? Evidence from Nigerian Manufacturing and Service Firms," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(2), pages 805-830, June.
    19. Rashmi Chaudhary & Priti Bakhshi & Hemendra Gupta, 2020. "Volatility in International Stock Markets: An Empirical Study during COVID-19," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-17, September.
    20. Malesky, Edmund J., 2009. "Foreign Direct Investors as Agents of Economic Transition: An Instrumental Variables Analysis," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 4(1), pages 59-85, March.
    21. Kazunobu Hayakawa, 2022. "Impacts of Vaccination on International Trade During the Pandemic Era," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 60(4), pages 206-227, December.
    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. Karina Acosta & Hengyu Gu, 2022. "Locked up? The development and internal migration nexus in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 19931, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    2. Daniel A. Griffith & Manfred M. Fischer & James LeSage, 2017. "The spatial autocorrelation problem in spatial interaction modelling: a comparison of two common solutions," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 75-86, March.
    3. Helge Berger & Sune Karlsson & Pär Österholm, 2023. "A note of caution on the relation between money growth and inflation," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(5), pages 479-496, November.
    4. Sara Amoroso & Alex Coad & Nicola Grassano, 2017. "European R&D networks: A snapshot from the 7th EU Framework Programme," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation JRC107546, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    5. Feier Yan & Fujin Yi & Huang Chen, 2024. "Effect of education on crop insurance knowledge: evidence from a RCT in China," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 17(1), pages 1-21, September.
    6. Biram, Hunter D. & Tack, Jesse & Nehring, Richard & Yu, Jisang, . "Corrigendum to “Empirical Challenges for Estimating Moral Hazard Effects of Crop Insurance on Pesticide Use”," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 49(3).
    7. Zhentao Shi & Jin Xi & Haitian Xie, 2025. "A Synthetic Business Cycle Approach to Counterfactual Analysis with Nonstationary Macroeconomic Data," Papers 2505.22388, arXiv.org.
    8. Mengjie Tian & Mingyong Hong & Ji Wang, 2023. "Land resources, market-oriented reform and high-quality agricultural development," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 4165-4197, December.
    9. Marrocu, Emanuela & Paci, Raffaele, 2013. "Different tourists to different destinations. Evidence from spatial interaction models," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 71-83.
    10. Daniel A. Griffith & Manfred M. Fischer, 2016. "Constrained Variants of the Gravity Model and Spatial Dependence: Model Specification and Estimation Issues," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Roberto Patuelli & Giuseppe Arbia (ed.), Spatial Econometric Interaction Modelling, chapter 0, pages 37-66, Springer.
    11. Dinesh Gajurel & Akhila Chawla, 2022. "International Information Spillovers and Asymmetric Volatility in South Asian Stock Markets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.
    12. Chen, Hong & Gangopadhyay, Partha & Singh, Baljeet & Chen, Kairan, 2023. "What motivates Chinese multinational firms to invest in Asia? Poor institutions versus rich infrastructures of a host country," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    13. Dongxue Wang & Yugang He, 2025. "Navigating Structural Shocks: Bayesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Approaches to Forecasting Macroeconomic Stability," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-25, July.
    14. Evgeniy Kutsenko & Sabyasachi Tripathi & Kirill Tyurchev, 2023. "Does complementarity matter for the emergence of new specialization industries in the regions of Russia?," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(9), pages 2126-2155, December.
    15. Feng, Wei & Sun, Shujun & Yuan, Hang, 2023. "Research on the efficiency of factor allocation in the pilot free trade zones," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 727-745.
    16. Shang, Hua & Jiang, Li & Pan, Xianyou & Pan, Xiongfeng, 2022. "Green technology innovation spillover effect and urban eco-efficiency convergence: Evidence from Chinese cities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    17. Sgrignoli, Paolo & Metulini, Rodolfo & Schiavo, Stefano & Riccaboni, Massimo, 2015. "The relation between global migration and trade networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 417(C), pages 245-260.
    18. Luisa Corrado & Bernard Fingleton, 2012. "Where Is The Economics In Spatial Econometrics?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 210-239, May.
    19. Philipp Gareis & Tom Broekel, 2022. "The Spatial Patterns of Student Mobility Before, During and After the Bologna Process in Germany," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(3), pages 290-309, July.
    20. Arbia, Giuseppe & Bramante, Riccardo & Facchinetti, Silvia & Zappa, Diego, 2018. "Modeling inter-country spatial financial interactions with Graphical Lasso: An application to sovereign co-risk evaluation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 72-79.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts

    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:spr:jknowl:v:16:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s13132-024-02288-y. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.