Topic: How does south-south FDI affect Host economies?

Speaker: Kevin H. Zhang

Location: Tencent Conference 348 220 156

Time: 2020-10-17 10:00:00

Brief introduction of the speaker: Kevin H. Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a PhD in Economics at the University of Colorado. He is currently a tenured professor in the Department of Economics at Illinois State University. His academic positions include Associate Editor of The Chinese Economy, an American Academic Journal in English, and Editorial Board of three other academic journals, Research Advisor of the Institute for International Development at Harvard University, and two-term Vice President of the Chinese Economists Society. His research areas include FDI-MNC, industrial upgrading, international trade, and urban-regional economic development. He has published more than 100 papers in leading international journals and monographs, including Journal of Development Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of Development Studies, Urban Studies, etc. He has edited and published 5 English monographs.

Report Overview: Foreign direct investment (FDI) from developing countries in other developing countries has increased significantly recently. Such the South-South FDI tends to behave differently from the North-South FDI. The rise of China’s FDI (C-FDI) in Africa has generated considerable controversy. While the popular opinion in Africa about C-FDI is positive, the Western reaction often is highly negative. How does C-FDI affect Africa’s economies? Do C-FDI and the North-FDI have different impacts on African economies? This paper studies the issues by using the cross-country panel data in 2003-2018. We find that benefits from C-FDI to African economies are greater than those from the North FDI, and that the promoting effects of C-FDI concentrate on host-country’s exports and industrialization. Uniquely the large Chinese investment in Africa’s infrastructure not only contributes overall economic growth, but also enhance host-country’s absorptive capacity in attracting and utilizing foreign capital.

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