We examine the interactions of project-specific scale and country-specific economic and institutional attributes in determining inward FDI location choices in emerging economies. We study a large project-level sample with over 15,000 investments originated in 20 industrialised countries and located in 25 emerging economies, between 2003 and 2014. Overall, firms show investment location preferences for emerging economies characterised by larger consumer markets, cheaper labour costs, lower corporate taxes and lower institutional distance. The effects of such country attributes on FDI location are significantly moderated by the project’s scale (measured as Capex and Employment). Larger project scale renders FDI location more sensitive to larger market size and to cheaper labour costs, but less sensitive to lower corporate taxes and to lower institutional distance. These results are consistent with the notion that project scale significantly affects firms’ locational sensitivity to country attributes when choosing between FDI target locations.

在确定新兴经济体的外国直接投资向内选择时，我们研究了特定项目规模与特定国家经济和制度属性之间的相互作用。我们研究了一个大型项目级别的样本，该样本具有2003年至2014年间来自20个工业化国家并位于25个新兴经济体的15,000多项投资。总体而言，公司对新兴经济体表现出投资地点偏爱的特征是其消费市场更大，劳动力成本更低，成本更低公司税和较短的机构距离。项目规模（以资本支出和就业衡量）大大减轻了这些国家属性对外国直接投资所在地的影响。较大的项目规模使FDI的位置对更大的市场规模和更便宜的人工成本更加敏感，但对降低公司税和缩短机构距离不太敏感。这些结果与以下观点一致：项目规模在外国直接投资目标位置之间进行选择时会显着影响公司对国家属性的位置敏感性。