Analysis of the impact of economic factors upon the FDI inflow in SEE and CEE countries

Abstract

Purpose – The goal of this paper is to explore the possible influence of certain economic factors over the FDI inflow in South-East European (SEE) countries and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. We compare the situation in 7 countries from the region of South-East Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia and 7 countries from the region of Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Research method – We apply a holistic approach based on panel data for a twenty-two-year period from 1995 till 2018. The analysis was effectuated through a panel unit-root test. The dependent variable is FDI net inflow (as % of GDP). The study takes into account the following economic variables: annual percentage growth of GDP; labor productivity as GDP per person employed; government consumption as percentage of GDP; inflation rate as annual percentage of GDP deflator; labor force with advanced education (% of the total working-age population with advanced education) and labor taxes and contributions (% of commercial profits). Results – The results indicate that there are differences between the factors that influence the FDI inflow in these two groups of countries. For the South-East European countries government spending,