0000000000821590
AUTHOR
Ana Cuadros
Homeward Bound FDI: Are Migrants a Bridge over Trouble Finance?
Migrants can lower cross-border investment barriers, help investors by providing information about their homeland and reduce transaction costs by sharing expertise on regulations, customs and procedures. In addition to generating these well-known networking effects, migrants can also provide valuable information about local finance, thereby easing the credit constraints foreign investors faced during the 2007 financial crisis. This paper sheds new light on the underlying mechanisms through which migration may affect foreign investment in the migrant's homeland by distinguishing between the effects on FDI's intensive and extensive margins. Gravity estimates for 140 countries for the period 2…
Migration and fdi: the role of job skills
Abstract Using a multi-country gravity framework, this paper models and quantifies the relevance of migrants' job position in fostering Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). High-skilled migrants are defined as those individuals born in the investors' home/host country occupying managerial or professional positions in the host/home country of investment. Our estimates show that higher shares of migrants with management skills in a given country promote FDI into that country. In contrast, an increase in the share of migrants in non-qualified positions (regardless of their educational attainment) has a negative impact on FDI decisions. These findings highlight that the FDI-enhancing effect of migr…