Determinantes do investimento estrangeiro direto em países na América Latina no período 2000-2011

Abstract

This paper is an econometric model of panel data for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America (LA), covering the period 2000-2011. The initial goal is to determine the degree of the impact of eight macroeconomic determinants of sixteen Latin American economies and the effect of the subprime crisis on investment flows to the region. The secondary objective is to realize the theoretical review of three theories of foreign direct investment - the theory of Product Cycle, the theory of industrial organization and the Eclectic Paradigm - in addition to literature review of 14 empirical studies on FDI in Latin America and in the world . To this end, we used a methodology of panel data. The Hausman test was applied and it was found in a modeling panel fixed effects. Through empirical testing, we observed a change of the initial model - was reduced from eight to seven variables impact, with the output of the variable internal absorption (ABS) - and the removal of dummy variables to control the crisis of 2008. The final model had control of the estimator with heteroscedasticity "robust" in the matrix of the estimated residuals. The end result of the econometric exercise showed statistical significance of 1% for the variable GDP, 8.6% for variable real exchange rate and of 5.1% for the variable inflation. The variable rate of GDP growth, labor, productivity and openness were not robust results. With these results, we conclude that there is the search market (market seeking), which is the basic criterion for multinational companies to choose Latin America as square to their respective investments.