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Approach
Author(s): Emiko Fukase
Source: Journal of Economic Integration , March 2010, Vol. 25, No. 1 (March 2010), pp.
193-222
Published by: Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University
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preserve and extend access to Journal of Economic Integration
Emiko Fukase
Abstract
For 106 countries over 1969-2004, this paper revisits the relationship between
openness, education and economic growth using the System Generalized Method
of Moment (GMM) approach. Trade and growth are usually positively correlated
and capital formation appears to be an important channel through which trade
brings growth. There generally exists a positive relationship between FDI inflow
and economic growth for a subset of non-OECD countries. The System GMM
estimator improves substantially the estimate of the impact of education on growth
relative to the models which focus on within-country changes in education, adding
information on cross-country variation in education levels.
• Key Words: growth, system GMM, openness, trade, education, foreign direct
investment
I. Introduction
Many cross-country studies from the 1990s find a strong positive relationship
between outward orientation and economic growth (e.g. Dollar, 1992; Sachs and
Warner, 1995). These studies typically regress per capita growth rate on various
openness level variables. There also exist a number of studies to assess the linkages
between economic growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) and their results are
* Corresponding address: Emiko Fukase: 725 West 172nd Street, #31, New York, NY 10032, U.S.A. Tel:
212-928-1095, Fax: 212-593-5115, e-mail: [email protected].
©2010-Center for International Economics, Sejong Institution, Sejong University, All Rights Reserved.
'in his extensive review of home- and host-country effects of FDI, Lipsey (2004) concludes that one
cannot say that there are "universal effects" of FDI on growth from the studies who find positive effects
in some periods or among some groups of countries and suggests that there are circumstances, periods,
and countries where FDI appears to have little relation to growth (p.369).
Table 1 shows the average annual growth rates of real per-capita GDP for 106
countries by growth performance for the period 1969 to 2004.
The first, second, third and fourth columns present the highest, high-middle,
low-middle, and the lowest quartile countries classified by their average annual
growth rates during the same period. The highest quartile countries include many
fast-growing East-Asian and South-East Asian economies as well as other
transitional economies. Among these, one sub-Saharan African country, Botswana,
was the second fastest growing country during the same period. Many OECD
countries belong to the high-middle growth quartile. With an exception of Papua
New Guinea, the lowest growing quartile is comprised of Sub-Saharan African,
Middle-Eastern, Latin American and Caribbean countries.
2Pritchett hypothesizes that in some countries education may have created "better-educated pirates" who
engage in "privately remunerative but socially wasteful or counterproductive activities" (p.387).
3Openness variables are measured by the volumes of trade and FDI as shares of GDP.
Table 1. Average Annual Real Per Capita Growth Rates for the Periods 1969-2004
High-middle Low-middle
Highest Quartile Lowest Quartile
Quartile Quartile
Growth Growth Growth Growth
Country Country Country Country
Rate (%) Rate (%) Rate (%) Rate (%)
China 7.40 Hungary 2.46 Mexico 1.64 Bahrain12 0.59
Botswana 6.80 Spain 2.45 Denmark 1.60 Argentina 0.57
Korea 5.80 Uganda4 2.29 Nepal 1.55 Senegal 0.45
Syrian
Thailand 4.68 Arab 2.20 Ecuador 1.44 Iran13 0.31
Republic
Mauritius2 4.31 Italy 2.19 Yemen11 1.31 Burundi 0.31
United South
Ireland 4.23 2.14 Algeria 1.31 0.29
Kingdom Africa
Indonesia 4.17
Mozambiq 2.10 1.30 Bolivia 0.27
ue5
Uruguay
(Continued)
Table 1. Average Annual Real Per Capita Growth Rates for the Periods 1969-2004 (Continued)
High-middle Low-middle
Highest Quartile Lowest Quartile
Quartile Quartile
Iceland 2.88 Sweden 1.84 Guyana 0.84 Nicaragua -1.63
Chile 2.76 Australia 1.82 Rwanda 0.83 Liberia -2.80
United
Japan 2.66 Sudan 1.74 Benin 0.81 Arab -3.09
Emirates16
Trinidad
Finland 2.61 and 1.74 Gambia 0.72
Dem. Rep. -3.60
of Congo
Tobago
Austria 2.47 Colombia 1.73 Mauritania 0.68 Kuwait17 -3.83
Table 2 demonstrates summary statistics for GDP growth rate, GDP per capita,
total education years, trade, and FDI inflow as the averages over the period 1969 to
2004 by growth quartiles.
There is substantial variation in annual real GDP per capita growth rates among
these four groups of countries with averages over the period of 4.0 per cent, 2.0 per
Notes: The standard deviations are between parentheses. '"Total Education Years" reflect average
schooling years for the population over age 15 (Barro and Lee, 2000). 2Trade is measured by
adding imports and exports and comparing the sum to the GDP.
cent, 1.1 per cent and -0.66 per cent for the highest, high-middle, low-middle and
lowest growth economies respectively. The average real GDP per capita are
recorded as $8,136.7, $9,449.5, $3,820.6, and $3,198.8 for these same groups.
GDP per capita of high-middle growth countries on average is higher than that of
the highest growth economies partly because the former group includes many high
income OECD economies. Within the subgroup of fast growers (the highest and
high-middle quartiles combined), lower income countries appear on average to
grow faster than higher income countries implying that the economies are
converging even unconditionally. Unfortunately, within the sub-group of slow
growers (low-middle and lowest quartiles), the lowest growing group records the
lowest average GDP per capita implying that these economies are falling further
behind.
During the same period, the high-middle quartile economies record the highest
schooling attainment with 6.4 total years of education which is slightly higher than
that of the highest quartile countries (6.1 years). The levels of education
attainments of low-middle and lowest quartile economies are clearly low relative to
the upper-half group, registering 4.5 years and 3.4 years respectively. In terms of
openness variables, trade relative to GDP reaches levels of 91.7 per cent, 62.9 per
cent, 67.9 per cent, and 61.1 per cent for the highest, high-middle, low-middle, and
lowest quartile economies respectively. FDI inflow relative to GDP accounts for
0 J 1 . — ,
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
2.3 per cent, 1.8 per cent, 1.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent for the same groups of
countries.
A. Model Specification
4This time Frame is chosen since the period ending at the year 2004 is the latest five year interval for
which the initial education data are available and the 1970s are the oldest decade when the FDI data
become available for a sufficient number of countries.
where yit denotes the logarithm of real per-capita GDP in country i in year t\ xit is a
vector of explanatory variable; § is the time specific effect which captures global
shocks; 7, is the country-specific effect; and vit is the error term. The education
variable is measured at the beginning of each five year period and the other
variables are measured as averages from t to t-4. Since my analysis is focused on
five year growth rates, lis 5 in my regression. Equation (1) can be re-written as a
dynamic model in the level of per capita GDP by adding yi(t.t) to both sides:
where a = (1+/3).
In the presence of the country specific effect //„ it is well known that the OLS
estimate of the coefficient on the lagged dependent variable a is likely to be biased
upward since the lagged dependent variable is positively correlated with 77, (see for
instance Blundell and Bond, 1998). One approach to address the country specific
effects is the fixed effects estimator. For this model, equation (I1) is transformed by
taking the deviation from the time series mean of each variable for each country,
and then the transformed equation is estimated by OLS. In this transformation
process, the country specific effects 77, can be removed. A disadvantage of using
the fixed effects model is that it uses only the variation within countries and the
cross-sectional variation is discarded. In addition, equation (1') contains a lagged
endogenous variable, namely the income term. Thus, with a small number of time
series periods, the model provides biased and inconsistent estimates even if data
from a large number of countries are considered. In contrast to the OLS estimate,
the fixed effects estimate of the coefficient on the lagged dependent variable a is
likely to be biased downward (Arellano and Bond, 1991).
Arellano and Bond (1991) suggest an alternative estimation technique that
addresses the presence of the lagged endogenous variable and permits a certain
degree of endogeneity in the other explanatory variables. Their GMM estimator
first-differences Equation (I1) in order to eliminate the country-specific effect, and
then uses all possible lagged levels as instruments. Arellano and Bond's Difference
Equation is:
Since and Avit are correlated, the OLS estimate of Equation (2) is
inconsistent. Assuming that the error terms are serially uncorrelated in Equation
(1), the level of>v, lagged two periods or more can be used as valid instruments for
Equation (2). This is because Ayi(t_2,) and earlier values are correlated with Ayi(t.0,
but not with Avit. Assuming that the xit are predetermined in the sense that xit and
Vjt are uncorrelated, but xit may be correlated with and earlier errors, xit lagged
one period or more are also used as valid instruments. Thus, the relevant moment
conditions are:
Thus, the additional moment conditions for the equation in levels are:
E[Ayi(i_ 0UiJ = 0 where uit = 77, + vit
E[AxitUjJ = 0.
Carkovic and Levine (2005) use the System GMM estimator to re-examine the
relationship between FDI and growth, but find no robust evidence supporting the
claim that FDI accelerates growth. Felbermayr (1995) employs the System GMM
estimator to revisit the relationship between trade and growth and finds a robust
and positive relationship between these variables.
B. Regression Results
Number of Instruments 96 92
Notes: The dependent variable is the log of GDP. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. For the
specification tests, p-values are reported. Time dummies are included in all the regressions (not
reported).
*, ** and *** indicate that the coefficients are significant at the 10, 5, and 1 per cent level,
respectively. Column 3 reports the results of two-step Arellano-Bond (1991) difference GMM.
Column 4 shows the results of two-step Blundell and Bond (1998) system-GMM estimator with
Windmeijer finite-sample correction.
The coefficients on the lagged dependent variable in all the models are found to
have a value of less than one and to be statistically significant at the 1 per cent
level, providing strong evidence of conditional convergence.6
The coefficient on education7 estimated by OLS is found to be positively
significant confirming the positive association between the initial level of human
capital and subsequent economic growth (Barro, 1991). In contrast, using fixed
effects and first-differenced GMM estimators, the coefficients on education lose
statistical significance perhaps because these within country models discard
information on cross-country variations in education levels. When the System
GMM estimator is employed, the coefficient on education reverts to become
significantly positive suggesting that the additional moment conditions derived
from the level equation are highly informative.
The coefficients on trade are found to be statistically significant and positive
using the fixed effects and System GMM models. The coefficients on FDI turn out
to be significantly positive using all methods except the System GMM model. The
coefficients on inflation show a significant and negative relationship in all the
models.
The validity of instruments for first-differenced and System GMM estimator can
be evaluated by a set of specification test (Arellano and Bond, 1991). The
6As expected, the magnitude of the coefficient for the lagged dependent variable estimated by OLS is
higher than that estimated using the fixed effects method and it is likely that the OLS estimate and fixed
effects estimates give upwards- and downwards-biased estimates respectively. The differenced GMM
estimate for the lagged dependent variable is found to be below the fixed effects estimate. This
downward bias in the differenced GMM estimator is consistent with the finite sample bias expected in
the case of highly persistent series (Blundell and Bond, 1998). The System GMM estimator of the
lagged dependent variable appears to provide the most reasonable results with the magnitude of
coefficient lower than the OLS and higher than the fixed effects estimates.
'The average of male and female schooling years for the population over age 15 is used as a proxy of
education. An alternative model of disaggregating education by gender was also considered. However,
the latter specification reproduced somewhat "puzzling" results in the previous studies. The results of
OLS model, a significantly positive coefficient on male education and a negative one on female
education, are consistent with the literature (Barro and Sala-i-Martin, 1995; Wacziarg, 2001). The results
of fixed effects and differenced GMM estimators reveal the reversal of the signs of male and female
eduction although they are not statistically significant or are significant only marginally. These changes
of signs are also consistent with the earlier works which use the first-differenced GMM estimators
(Caselli et al., 1996). With the System GMM estimates, the coefficients on male and female education
years both show positive signs although only the coefficient on female education is significant at the five
per cent level. A potential explanation of these "unstable" results is that the collinearity between male
and female schooling variables is inflating the standard errors. The Variance Inflation Factors (VIFs) for
female and male schooling variables are 15.7 and 13.0 respectively suggesting a high degree of
collinearity between two variables. Wetherill (1986) suggests that, as a rule of thumb, a VIF higher than
10 is of concern. Thus, the specification of including separate male and female education years was
dropped.
sAlthough the results of System GMM models are highlighted in this paper, the outcomes of the pooled
OLS and fixed effect models are reported in Appendix Table A for the purpose of comparison.
'This model is the same as that in Column 4 in Table 3.
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Figure 2. Relationship between Trade, FDI Inflow and Gross Capital Formation
Figure 2.A. Trade and Gross Capital Formation
o
+ OECD ° Non-OECD
□ - OECD Non-OECD
o -
—T
-10 30
,0The OECD countries are defined as the current member countries for which the data are available,
namely, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States. Czech Republic,
Luxembourg, and Slovak Republic are not included due to the unavailability of the data.
revealed that there is a positive robust link between trade and capital in non-OECD
countries, but that the correlation is close to zero for OECD countries.
Second, when both trade and FDI variables are included in the regressions, one
of these variables tends to lose statistical significance. Trade and FDI are linked in
many different ways. First, both variables might reflect the general openness of a
country (e.g., if a country "opens up" and liberalizes trade and investment regimes
simultaneously). Second, increases in trade may be directly caused by increases in
FDI, due to a much greater propensity to trade of foreign firms relative to domestic
firms.11 Third, the association might reflect features of FDI, e.g. so-called
"horizontal" FDI to serve a protected host-country market vs. "vertical" FDI that is
integrated into the global production network of the parent multinationals. With
"horizontal" FDI, as FDI may occur to save trade costs, FDI acts mainly as a
substitute for trade. In contrast, in the context of "vertical" integration strategies in
which multinationals locate their production activities across different countries
taking advantage of international factor price differences, trade and FDI tend to be
complements. Figure 2.B reveals a positive correlation between trade and FDI for
both OECD and non-OECD economies.
Third, the coefficients on FDI are sensitive to the inclusion of the capital
variable. The effects of FDI on capital formation can be either positive or negative.
On the positive side, foreign firms, especially FDI in the form of greenfield
investments,12 may contribute directly to domestic capital formation. As foreign
firms are more involved in trade relative to domestic firms, FDI might promote
trade-induced investments. They might also indirectly stimulate domestic
investment through backward and forward linkages. On the other hand, FDI might
be harmful to domestic capital formation by crowding out domestic investments
and forcing inefficient firms out of business. Policies offering preferential tax
treatment and other incentives to attract FDI may result in forgone public revenues
and introduce distortions affecting domestic investments.
Figure 2.C plots the relationship between FDI inflow and gross capital
l3System GMM estimator is designed for situations with "Small T, large N" panels meaning few time
periods and many individuals (Roodman, 2006). For the subset of OECD countries, it became
impossible to run the System GMM regressions due to the reduced sample size. See Appendix Table
A for the results of OLS and fixed effect models.
14However, further robustness analyses reveal that the coefficients of FDI become insignificant when
inflation is not included in the regressions. Thus, it should not be assumed that FDI is always growth
enhancing in developing countries.
population over age 15 is associated with about .67 per cent faster annual growth in
per capita GDP. These findings contrast with the results obtained from the within
country fixed effects models where none of the coefficients on education reveals
any statistically significant relationship (see Appendix Table A). This exercise
suggests that the results of the coefficients on education obtained from within
country panel data models need to be interpreted with caution since the latter
models wipe out the information on cross-country variation in the levels of
educational attainment.
A similar insight would be relevant for the models derived from growth
accounting exercises since the growth rates of human capital also fail to
incorporate cross-country variation in education levels. For instance, Benhabib and
Spiegel (1994) estimate growth accounting regressions relating the growth rate of
GDP to the log change in years of schooling and find insignificant and usually
negative coefficients on human capital growth rates. However, specifying an
alternative model in which the growth rate of technological progress depends on a
country's human capital stock level, Benhabib and Spiegel find a positive
relationship between human capital and economic growth. They in turn conclude
that education is not directly important as a factor of production and that human
capital affects growth by promoting technological innovation and facilitating
adoption of technology from abroad. However, I cast some doubt on Benhabib and
Spiegel's conclusion that human capital is not a productive input in the production
function since, when the log level of GDP is regressed on the log level of
education, the coefficient on education turns out to be positive and highly
significant.15
l5Assuming a simplified version of the production function in which per capita income (7,) is a function
of physical capital (K,) and human capital (Hi), Y,=g(K,, H,), and taking log differences, I estimate the
following relationship for my sample: Alog Y, = 0.087*** + 0.22*** Alog K, - 0.16*** Alog H,
(0.0095) (0.031) (0.044)
(R2= 0.12; number of observations=560; robust standard errors are in parentheses)
Similar to the findings of Benhabib and Spiegel and others, the coefficient on log differe
capital is found to be significantly negative.
However, when the log level of income per capita is regressed on the log level of hum
coefficient on the log level of education turns out to be highly positively significant as sh
log Y, = 3.70*** + OAS'log K, + 1.71 "'log H,
(0.79) (0.27) (0.13)
(R2= 0.54; number of observations=667; robust standard errors are in parentheses
Borensztein et al. (1998) test the impact of FDI on economic growth via transfer
of technology dealing with data on FDI flows from industrial countries to 69
developing countries. They find a positively significant coefficient for the
interaction term between FDI and schooling and suggest that the beneficial effects
of FDI in terms of growth hold only when the host country has a minimum
threshold stock of human capital. However, a recent study by Carkovic and Levine
(2005) finds little evidence that FDI would affect economic growth even allowing
for the interaction between FDI and human capital.
Borensztein et a/.'s findings lead to a question whether some minimum level of
human capital is a prerequisite for a country to reap any benefit from FDI. Based
on case study evidence involving poorer developing countries, Moran (2005)
suggests that allowing foreign firms to invest in economic sectors which employ
the low-skilled workers in the early stages of export-led growth16 might provide
positive impacts to the least developed countries in terms of generating
employment opportunities and export revenues. As foreign firms have an incentive
to locate labor-intensive activities in low-wage countries either in the context of
vertical integration strategy17 or "export platform" operations, FDI may play a key
role in utilizing efficiently low-skilled labor in which the least developed
economies possess a comparative advantage. Applying the Smith-Myint model of
"vent for surplus" to China, Fu and Balasubramanyam (2005) find that the
expansion of exports from labor-intensive manufacturing, assisted by FDI, has
promoted the growth of industrial output and accelerated the transfer of surplus
labor from the agricultural to the export sector.
Slaughter (2002) suggests that FDI might contribute to a host country's good
macro environment in which fiscal policy drives productive investments, through
for instance contributing to host-country revenues. Botswana's FDI experience can
be cited as an example that even a least developed country with a minimal initial
stock of human capital might reap such benefits if a country has strong institutions.
l6Balasubramanyam, Salisu, and Sapsford (1996) find that the beneficial effect of FDI on economic
growth is stronger when developing countries pursue the export promoting (EP) strategy rather than the
import substituting (IS) strategy.
l7Using firm-level data on U.S. multinationals, Hanson, Mataloni and Slaughter (2005) examine the
behavior of multinational firms locating input processing in their foreign affiliates. They find that the
demand for imported inputs by U.S. multinationals is higher when affiliates face lower wages for less
skilled labor.
Botswana is among the fastest growing economies (the second fastest after China
in my sample) with an average annual real per capita GDP growth rate of 6.8 per
cent for the past 35 years. Starting as a very poor nation at independence in 1966
with per capita income of merely $312,18 Botswana now belongs to the upper
middle income countries with real per capita GDP of $3,683.9 in 2004 (The World
Bank). Several studies document the presence of good institutions among the
causes of its high economic growth (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson, 2001;
Mehlum, Moene, and Torvik, 2006; Olsson, 2006). Soon after the Kimberlite
diamond pipes were found in the early 1970s, the Botswanan government formed a
joint venture with the South African firm De Beers, which has a dominant position
in the global diamond market.19 Botswana in turn invested its revenues from
diamonds in a socially efficient way in public goods such as infrastructure, health
and education (Acemoglu et al., 2001). For instance, Botswana accumulated
human capital at a much faster rate than the world average with the average
education years of its population increasing from 2.0 years in 1970 to 6.3 years in
2000 (Barro and Lee, 2000).
Blonigen and Wang (2005) argue that it is inappropriate to pool developing and
developed countries in empirical analyses since there is a systematic difference in
the determinants and effects of FDI between these two groups of countries. They
test a hypothesis that the contrasting results between Borensztein et al. (1998) and
Carkovic and Levine (2005) might be attributed to the different coverage of host
countries included in their samples.20 Extending Borensztein et al. 's dataset adding
developed countries as host countries, and observing that the interaction term loses
its significance, Blonigen and Wang argue that Borensztein et al. 's conclusions are
supported only for developing host countries. In the next subsection, I extend
Borensztein et a/./Blonigen and Wang's analyses and investigate what happens if
the source countries are extended to both OECD and non-OECD countries using
their actual dataset.
Column 1 on Table 5 reproduces Borensztein et al. 's results of the impact of FDI
from OECD to developing countries (Regression 1.3 in Table 1, p. 124) using the
Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) techniques for the periods 1970s and
1980s.
The results demonstrate that whereas the coefficient on FDI is negative but
insignificant, the interaction term is positively significant at the one per cent level.
The values of these coefficients imply that the countries with male secondary
school attainment above .52 will benefit from FDI, which is the identical result
with Borensztein et al. 's (p. 125). Column 2 of Table 5 provides the results of the
effects of FDI from OECD to both developed and developing economies as host
countries using Blonigen and Wang's (2005) extended dataset. The results show
much reduced and statistically insignificant coefficient estimates on FDI measures
supporting Blonigen and Wang (2005)'s conclusion that FDI from developed
countries affects growth conditioned on a sufficient level of human capital only in
developing host countries.
Finally, Column 3 of Table 5 reports the results replacing the FDI variable with
those from all the source countries to developing host countries. Whereas the
coefficient on FDI is found to be positively significant at the five per cent level, the
coefficient on the interaction term becomes insignificant. These results imply that,
once all the source countries are taken into consideration, the growth of developing
countries is generally associated positively with FDI and that no evidence is found
to support the existence of threshold level of schooling below which developing
Notes: The models in Table 4A were re-estimated including the interaction term between schooling and
FDI.
It is not the purpose of this exercise to argue that human capital is not important
interactively with FDI. Perhaps, Borensztein et al. 's conclusions may be valid for
the technology transfer channel from developed countries but developing source
countries may contribute to growth in other developing countries probably due to
the use of technology that is more compatible with host-country educational levels.
In other words, this paper suggests that there appears to be a variety of channels
through which FDI can affect growth and that the roles of human capital are likely
to differ depending on different channels, industries, and host country policies and
institutional capabilities.
Table 6 demonstrates the results of System GMM models re-estimating the
regressions in Table 4.A including the interaction term between schooling and FDI.
Surprisingly, the coefficients on interaction terms turn out to be negatively
significant in four out of the six models implying that the growth effect of FDI is
greater for countries with lower human capital.21 These findings may appear
puzzling, but are consistent with Carkovic and Levine's (20 05).22 A potential
explanation is that the interaction term may have captured an overall tendency for
the impacts of FDI to be greater in developing countries (with less human capital)
than in developed countries (with more human capital). The results of the impacts
of FDI vary depending on the periods included. Excluding the most recent three
periods, namely 1989-2004, the coefficients on the interaction term turn out to be
insignificant (not reported). Perhaps, a variety of changing characteristics of FDI -
including a greater level of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) relative
to the earlier periods, and increasing participation of developing economies as
sources of FDI23 (UNCTAD, 2006) - may have been altering the impacts of FDI in
host countries over time.
2'The qualitative results are similar when I use OLS, SUR and fixed effects models.
^Investigating 70 countries over the periods 1960 to 1995, Carkovic and Levine (2005) find that the
coefficients on FDPeducation are either insignificant or negatively significant in their System GMM
models.
23For low-income developing countries, FDI from developing countries accounts for a large share of total
FDI flows. FDI by developing countries might have a greater employment-generating potential relative
to those by developed countries since they may be oriented more towards labor-intensive industries and
may use simpler technologies. The example of such FDI is the emergence of East Asian developing
countries as foreign investors in labor-intensive sectors in Asia (UNCTAD, 2006).
V. Conclusion
This paper revisits the relationship between openness, education and economic
growth for 106 countries over the periods 1969-2004 using the System GMM
approach.
In terms of the linkages between openness and growth, the system GMM
estimators provide support for some of the earlier findings. Whereas there are
usually positive ties between trade and growth, the coefficient on trade loses
statistical significance when the regressions include capital formation. The latter
result is consistent with the earlier research findings that trade is largely linked to
higher growth via investment (Wacziarg, 2001; Levine and Renelt, 1992).
There generally exists a positive relationship between FDI inflow and economic
growth for a subset of non-OECD countries. This may be partly because FDI has
on average positive impacts on host-countries' capital formation in developing
countries (de Mello, 1997; Wang, 2003). However, the paper does not reveal clear
insights on how FDI and education interact to affect economic growth. In my
regressions, the coefficients for the interaction term between FDI and education are
found to be sensitive to the coverage of source and host countries and the periods
included. The paper suggests that there appears to be a variety of channels through
which FDI can affect growth and that the roles of human capital are likely to differ
depending on different channels, industries, and host country policies and
institutional capabilities.
Finally, the System GMM approach is found to improve substantially the
estimate of the impacts of education on growth relative to the models which focus
on the changes in educational attainment. The effect of education on economic
growth has been debated in the literature. Whereas earlier studies identified the
positive impacts of the initial level of education on economic growth (e.g. Barro,
1991), some influential papers which relate economic growth and education
growth find insignificant and even negative coefficients on education (e.g.
Benhabib and Spiegel, 1994; Pritchett, 2001). This paper hypothesizes that these
mixed results are attributed to the characteristics of the data, i.e., whereas there
exists a positive relationship between the levels in educational attainment and
economic growth, there is little systematic variation in the changes in education
across countries (see Figure 1). The System GMM approach is shown to be better
suited to the actual data: once information on cross country variation in education
levels is added to data on within-country changes in education, the System GMM
Acknowledgements
Data Appendix
The following data are extracted from the World Development Indicators (the
World Bank) from 1969 to 2004: real per capita GDP in constant 2000 prices;
inflation rate in consumer prices, trade (imports plus exports) as per cent of GDP;
government consumption as per cent of GDP; and gross capital formation as per
cent of GDP. The data for FDI inflow as per cent of GDP are taken from Foreign
Direct Investment (FDI) Database of UNCTAD. The averages of male and female
schooling years for the population over age 15 are computed from Barro and Lee's
dataset (2000). The FDI data used for Borensztein et al. (1998) and Blonigen and
Wang (2005)'s studies were provided by Miao Wang."
Table A. Results of Education and Openness Variables Estimated by OLS and Fixed Effects
Models
Full Sample
0.059"* 0.19*"
(1) X X
(0.015) (0.039)
0.66 2.17***
(2) X X
(0.52) (0.64)
1.95"* 0.050*" 0.40 0.17***
(3) X X X X
(0.74) (0.016) (1.09) (0.046)
1.84" 1.26*** 0.31 1.50"*
(4) X X X X
(0.73) (0.28) (1.10) (0.32)
1.72"* 0.0087 0.76 0.12***
(5) X X X X X
(0.57) (0.014) (1.06) (0.044)
1.66*" 0.71*" 0.65 1.23*"
(6) X X X X X
(0.58) (0.23) (1.03) (0.31)
1.85" 1.08*" 0.017 0.30 1.25*** 0.15*"
(7) X X X XX
(0.73) (0.38) (0.019) (1.15) (0.33) (0.043)
1.89" 1.02** 0.022 0.33 1.23'** 0.15***
(8) X X X XX X
(0.74) (0.40) (0.019) (1.16) (0.33) (0.043)
1.64"* 0.98*** -0.023 0.68 1.07*** 0.10"
(9) X X X XX X
(0.56) (0.30) (0.016) (1.07) (0.29) (0.040)
Non-OECD Countries
0.087*" 0.19***
(1) X X
(0.019) (0.040)
0.87 2.41***
(2) X X
(0.69) (0.70)
2.83*** 0.064*** -0.86 0.16"*
(3) X X X X
(0.90) (0.020) (1.06) (0.047)
2.82*** 1.85*** -0.64 1.70***
(4) X X X X
(0.34)
(0.78) (1.19) (0.38)
2.57"* 0.015 -0.088 0.093**
(5) X X X X X
(0.67) (0.018) (1.16) (0.039)
2.47**' 1.15"* -0.22 1.33***
(6) X X X X X
(0.61) (0.30) (1.13) (0.38)
2.80"* 1.75*** 0.013 -0.80 1.58**' 0.14***
(7) X X X XX
(0.81) (0.45) (0.022) (1.15) (0.42) (0.047)
2.81*** 1.69*** 0.019 -0.79 1.55*** 0.14"*
(8) X X X XX X
(0.82) (0.47) (0.022) (1.15) (0.42) (0.047)
2.51*** 1.45*** -0.027 -0.20 1.24*** 0.083"
(9) X X X XX X
(0.60) (0.35) (0.018) (1.17) (0.38) (0.041)
OECD Countries
0.056 0.23"
(1) X X
(0.033) (0.093)
0.17 0.64
(2) X X
(0.73) (0.72)
-0.20 0.046 1.49 0.25"
(3) X X X X
(0.57) (0.034) (1.45) (0.095)
(Continued)
Table A. Results of Education and Openness Variables Estimated by OLS and Fixed Effects
Models (Continued)
Variables Included Pooled OLS Fixed Effects
Notes: The dependent variable is the log of GDP. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. The model numbers (1)
through (9) correspond to those in Table 4.A.B. *, "* indicate that the coefficients are significant at the 10,
5, and 1 per cent level respectively.
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