Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Provincial Level Data in Indonesia

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is especially important for developing countries. This study investigates the determinants of FDI in the case of Indonesia. Most empirical researches in this field used time series data of a single country or panel data of several countries. Although panel data analysis is more comprehensive, however results taken from cross-country analysis cannot be directly applied to any specific country in the dataset and therefore lacks practicality. In this research, panel data analysis of a single country is performed to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings. Five determinants of FDI are tested using panel data of 33 Indonesian provinces over 10-year period of time. Two methodologies are adopted, random/fixed effects model and Granger Causality. The results show that only market size significantly affects FDI when tested using both methodologies. Human capital and financial market development show significant result in one of the two methodologies. While, economic growth and infrastructure did not show any significant results at all. This research stresses the importance of comprehensive single country analysis since only one out of five commonly discussed determinants is applicable in the case of Indonesia. Governments should therefore carefully reconsider the use of cross-country analysis as a basis of their policy formulations.