تاثیر بحران جهانی اخیر بر سرمایه گذاری مستقیم خارجی: مدارک و شواهد از کشورهای اروپای شرقی و مرکزی

Few studies have investigated the relationship between the recent global financial and economic crisis and FDI flows. This paper aims to analyze such a relationship for Central and Eastern European countries (EU members). The crisis had a major impact on capital flows to the region, although the magnitude of the impact differed notably, depending on the type of capital inflows and the receiving country. In order to highlight this, we use a regression model and panel data methodology, trying to find if there is some difference between the analyzed countries. The results will be very useful if there is a pattern for different countries regarding the main effect of the financial crisis and the interaction with economic growth over the FDI. Taking into consideration the fact that we found that economic growth has a significant influence over the level of FDI and, moreover, a positive influence, the present study is very important in supporting the regulatory environment of those specific countries, in order to attract more FDI, as a solution for recovery of the economies affected by crisis.

Investments across countries are a powerful tool in promoting economic relationships between different parts of the world. Over the past two decades, the global foreign direct investments (FDI) flows had rapidly increased. Despite turmoil in the global economy, global FDI flows exceeded the pre-crisis average in 2011, reaching 1.5 trillion USD. However, they still remained some 23% below their 2007 peak (UNCTAD, 2012), when the value of FDI was 1,971 billion USD, about ten times more than the value recorded in 1990. Our paper will analyze the relationship between the FDI flows and the financial crisis which started in 2008, emphasizing the case of CEE countries. Our study is the second attempt on a more extensive project that aims to study, to analyze and to argue the macroeconomic and microeconomic effects of the global crisis on FDI. Subsequently, this paper will be followed by more analyses, using existing data and recent research in the field. Overall, the project aims to offer a fully documented response to the question: is it necessary a special treatment (promotion policy) for FDI in time of crisis? This paper is organized as follows: section 2 presents a short literature review on the relationship between FDI, economic growth and crisis. In section 3, we describe the methodology used, we show the data selection process and the characteristics of our sample and we report our results. Finally, we present our main conclusions.

In order to contribute to existing literature, we have analyzed the relationship between the financial crisis and FDI in CEE Countries. The results show that the financial crisis affects directly the level of FDI. The results seem to be logical, because the magnitude of the financial crisis started in 2008 in United States, amplified the effects, so the crisis had a powerful negative effect on CEE economies. The regression model might have some limitations due to the small size of the sample, only 18 annual observations for a sample of 10 countries, over the period 1994 2011. Further studies can replicate our analysis using a different sample of data in order to identify if there are some special characteristics of selected countries which might affect the intensity and effects of financial crisis on FDI. Another direction for further studies will be to analyze are influencing more or less economic results in times of crisis compared to normal times through comparative analysis by dividing the analyzed period into two subperiods (normal times and crisis times). Taking into account our findings, the present study is very important in supporting the regulatory environment, in order to attract more FDI, as a solution for recovery of the economies affected by crisis.