Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: Evidence from Japan

This article aims at analysing the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows in economic performance and the impact of economic growth on outward FDI with the data from Japan. Bivariate and multivariate Granger causality frameworks have been used in this study. The results suggest that the conclusion of bivariate framework may not be valid because it allows omission of important variables. The results of the multivariate framework show that there is a long-run positive unidirectional causality from outward FDI to gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. In the short-run, both per capita income and outward FDI do not allow Granger causality.