The Predictive Capacity of the Gravity Model of Trade on Foreign Direct Investment

The link between foreign direct investments (FDI) and trade is firmly established in economic literature. Yet despite the vast amount of literature on this subject, very few have tried to look at FDI through the lens of trade theory, choosing rather to approach the subject on either a macroeconomic-level or on firm-level. The purpose and scope of this paper is to explore FDI through the lens of trade-theory. The central questions in this thesis are whether the gravity model of trade can serve as a reliable model for FDI value as well? Are there certain variables in the gravity model that are distinctively powerful determinants of FDI? Two econometric models are used to determine the gravitational impact on FDI, one ordinary OLS model and one fixed-effect model. The findings when using OLS regressions are that the components of the gravity model of trade are indeed key determinants of FDI value, and the two most significant positive determinants were home country GDP as well as home country per-capita GDP. In the fixed-effect model however, several variables were found to have no significant effect on FDI value and only home country GDP and host country per-capita GDP were consistent positive determinants of FDI