Can foreign direct investment help Poland catch up with the EU?

The paper examines the extent to which the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) helps Poland to catch up with the EU. FDI can facilitate the process of catching up mainly through transfer and diffusion of technology, which leads to upgrading of technological and innovative potential of a host country. The paper is aimed at assessing whether FDI is correlated with the innovation processes in different branches of the Polish industry. A regression analysis conducted in this paper has confirmed that, except for low-technology industries, FDI impacts Poland's innovation efforts and thus helps Poland to catch up with the EU. (C) 2004 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.