The direction of causality between outward FDI and GDP can be mixed if
countries are studied individually with time series methods of estimation because
of the differences in economic structures. Therefore, the presence of a type of
relationship between these two variables can be country specific. The occurrence of a
relationship may depend on the trade regime, human capital conditions and the
stability of the home country. This is obvious when we look at the empirical literature
on the direction of causality between inward FDI and GDP. For instance, Zhang
(2001) tests for the presence of short-run and long-run Granger causality between
inward FDI stock and GDP of four Latin American countries and seven East Asian
countries. He is able to find short-run causality from inward FDI stock to GDP for
Singapore; short-run causal link from GDP to inward FDI stock for Brazil, Korea
and Thailand; and no short-run causal link for Argentina. He also finds long-run
causal link from inward FDI stock to GDP for Hong Kong and Taiwan;
bidirectional long-run causality for Mexico and Taiwan; and unidirectional longrun
causality from GDP to FDI stock for Colombia. Recognizing the direction of
causality between outward FDI and GDP can vary from one country to another if
countries are studied individually. I would like to address this question with the data
of the high income Asian country: Japan.
I focus on Japan because in the study of Herzer (2008) only one Asian country,
Japan, is included in his sample. The selection of Japan in this study is based on its
closer link with other East Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand
and China, in terms of direct investment and trade activities. Japan is the major
provider of FDI into these countries. In addition, during the 1980s, Japan was the
world’s most prominent outward investor (Head & Ries, 2005). Furthermore, Japan
is selected because of its unique distribution of outward FDI. Most of the high
income Asian countries invest mainly in other Asian countries. For instance,
Singapore’s FDI concentrates mainly in Asian countries, in particular those which
are less advanced than Singapore. Developing countries host more than 80% of
Singapore’s FDI stock (Ellingsen et al., 2006). However, Japan’s major investment
destinations are Europe and North America. These two regions form 60% to 80% of
the share of Japan’s outward FDI in each year for the period 19892003 (Suzuki,
2005). Suzuki (2005) indicates that the growth in Japan’s investment in China led to the growth in its investment in Asia. Tables 1 and 2 show the outward FDI flows and
stocks of Japan from 1990 to 2005. Japan’s outward FDI stock rose almost two-fold
in the period 19902005. But, the share of Japan’s outward FDI stock in the world
had declined from around 11.1% in 1990 to around 3.65% in 2005.
The rest of this paper is presented as follows. The next section describes the data
sources, presents the econometric methodology, and analyses the empirical findings.
The final section concludes this paper.