IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v51y2019i11p1183-1198.html

The impact of electricity prices on foreign direct investment: evidence from the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Eva Barteková
  • Thomas H. W Ziesemer

Abstract

We examine the impact of electricity price variation on net FDI (%GDP) inflows in countries of the European Union. We use panel data of 27 EU countries for a period of 2003 – 2013. We show that electricity prices of south-western and north-eastern EU countries did not converge to one price until now. Dynamic panel data analysis using system GMM shows that besides unit labour costs, tax rates and competitive disadvantage in secondary education, also higher electricity prices reduce countries’ ability to attract FDI. The immediate effects are statistically significant across both sub-regions analysed: in the short run, a 10% increase in electricity prices leads to a decrease in net FDI inflows as a share of GDP by 0.4 percentage points for the south-western and 0.33 for the north-eastern region. In the long run, the response is 0.60 percentage points for south-western and 0.48 for north-eastern regions. Policies should aim at reducing electricity market price differences on the European level through investment in transborder transmission capacity; reductions in FDI, when environmental policy increases after-tax electricity prices, should be countered by other tax reductions as well as harmonization of property rights, absence of corruption and labour market regulations at best-practice level.

Suggested Citation

  • Eva Barteková & Thomas H. W Ziesemer, 2019. "The impact of electricity prices on foreign direct investment: evidence from the European Union," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(11), pages 1183-1198, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:51:y:2019:i:11:p:1183-1198
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2018.1524983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2018.1524983
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2018.1524983?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Loughran, Tim & Vijh, Anand M, 1997. "Do Long-Term Shareholders Benefit from Corporate Acquisitions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 1765-1790, December.
    2. Gert Bijnens & Jozef Konings & Stijn Vanormelingen, 2022. "The impact of electricity prices on European manufacturing jobs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(1), pages 38-56, January.
    3. Suborna Barua & Junnatun Naym & Hazera-Tun-Nessa, 2017. "Economic Climate, Infrastructure and FDI: Global Evidence with New Dimensions," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 16(1), pages 31-48, June.
    4. Tri Wahyu Adi & Eri Prabowo & Oetami Prasadjaningsih, 2022. "Influence of Electricity Consumption of Industrial and Business, Electricity Price, Inflation and Interest Rate on GDP and Investments in Indonesia," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 12(3), pages 331-340, May.
    5. Carfora, A. & Pansini, R.V. & Scandurra, G., 2021. "The role of environmental taxes and public policies in supporting RES investments in EU countries: Barriers and mimicking effects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    6. Xiaojie Yu & Duminda Kuruppuarachchi & Sriyalatha Kumarasinghe, 2024. "Financial development, FDI, and CO2 emissions: does carbon pricing matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(25), pages 2959-2974, May.
    7. Aamir Khan & David Kalisz, 2024. "Post-Acquisition Operating Performance of Acquiring Firms following Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions," Economies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-14, July.
    8. Grafström, Jonas, 2023. "Spark of Transformation: The Impact of Electricity Prices on Europe's Industrial Landscape – Introducing the Green Industrial Location Attractiveness Index (GILAI)," Ratio Working Papers 369, The Ratio Institute.
    9. George E. Halkos & Apostolos S. Tsirivis, 2023. "Electricity Prices in the European Union Region: The Role of Renewable Energy Sources, Key Economic Factors and Market Liberalization," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-20, March.
    10. Kodad Rajaa & Jingfeng Yuan & Lei Zhang & Junwei Ma & Lei Zhang, 2021. "External Factors Affecting Investment in Overseas Electric Power Projects," Springer Books, in: Gui Ye & Hongping Yuan & Jian Zuo (ed.), Proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate, pages 1455-1472, Springer.
    11. Fang, Lei & Yu, Chin-Hsien & Li, Xinghao & Chiang, Jyun-You, 2025. "Embracing uncertain times: An energy security perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy

    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:taf:applec:v:51:y:2019:i:11:p:1183-1198. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.