Abstract

Bhagwati hypothesis opines that the overall impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth is conditioned on countries’ level of integration with the international market. We test this hypothesis for some selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Does this hypothesis hold given our sample evidence? Yes! No! Maybe! We explain why. By invoking the sample splitting and threshold estimation technique, we find that the two measures of openness (trade openness and exports) mediate the FDI-economic growth relationship in three countries and this is an indication of complete Bhagwati hypothesis in these countries. Also, we find that, given the measure of openness, four countries exhibit incomplete Bhagwati hypothesis. Finally, we find no support for the Bhagwati hypothesis for most countries. Based on these findings, we argue that the validity of the Bhagwati hypothesis may be contingent on both country characteristics and the indicator of openness.

摘要

Bhagwati 假设认为，外国直接投资 (FDI) 对经济增长的总体影响取决于各国与国际市场的融合程度。我们在撒哈拉以南非洲 (SSA) 的一些选定国家中检验了这一假设。鉴于我们的样本证据，这个假设是否成立？是的！不！也许！我们解释原因。通过调用样本分割和阈值估计技术，我们发现开放度的两个衡量指标（贸易开放度和出口）在三个国家中调节了 FDI 与经济增长的关系，这表明这些国家的 Bhagwati 假设是完整的。此外，我们发现，考虑到开放程度，四个国家表现出不完整的巴格瓦蒂假设。最后，我们发现大多数国家都不支持巴格瓦蒂假设。基于这些发现，