Is Foreign Direct Investment a Real Driving Force of Economic Growth? A Panel Data Analysis

The purpose of this empirical study is to find the relationship between economic growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) using endogenous technological change model. First, we combine the CIS and CEECs into one group to test our hypothesis, and then we test each group separately to account for heterogeneity and draw a conclusion whether FDI is indeed a driving force of the economy. Panel data have been used from 2003 to 2014 and different panel estimation methods have been applied. Additionally, we use the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel estimator to control for endogeneity problem. The present study finds that FDI is an important factor explaining economic growth in the pooled group and CEECs, although it is not significant in the case of CIS.