Khatabi, S., Komijani, A., Mohamadi, T., Memarnezhad, A. (2018). Factors Associated with FDI Inflows to MENA Region – An Empirical Examination. Iranian Economic Review, (), -. doi: 10.22059/ier.2018.68951
Sanaz Khatabi; Akbar Komijani; Teymoor Mohamadi; Abas Memarnezhad. "Factors Associated with FDI Inflows to MENA Region – An Empirical Examination". Iranian Economic Review, , , 2018, -. doi: 10.22059/ier.2018.68951
Khatabi, S., Komijani, A., Mohamadi, T., Memarnezhad, A. (2018). 'Factors Associated with FDI Inflows to MENA Region – An Empirical Examination', Iranian Economic Review, (), pp. -. doi: 10.22059/ier.2018.68951
Khatabi, S., Komijani, A., Mohamadi, T., Memarnezhad, A. Factors Associated with FDI Inflows to MENA Region – An Empirical Examination. Iranian Economic Review, 2018; (): -. doi: 10.22059/ier.2018.68951
Factors Associated with FDI Inflows to MENA Region – An Empirical Examination
Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript , Available Online from 19 December 2018
1Department of Economic, Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran.
2Faculty of Economics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3Department of Economics, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The purpose of the current research was empirically examining the relationship between six independent variables and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows (dependent variable) to countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for the period of 2002-2016. The independent variables studied in this research were foreign exchange systems, good governance, inflation, gross domestic product, market openness, and doing business.
To test the research hypotheses, a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression utilized to analyze the unbalanced pooled data for the years 2002-2016. The hypotheses tested at 95% confidence level and Eviews produced two-tailed probability T statistics.
Based on the results of the analysis, none of the six hypotheses rejected. This result show that good governance, gross domestic product, openness and doing business had a positive relationship in spite of inflation by the negative effect on FDI inflows. As for foreign exchange system, the result showed that countries with fixed exchange rate system attracted more FDI inflows as compared to the countries with the two-tiered system.