How will the Change of the U.S. Immigration politics and Increased
Immigrant Populations affect the Foreign Direct Investment Inflows?
Charlie-GeiGuen Shin
Department of Political Science
University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, MO 65211
Phone: 573-356-1868
Email:
Proposal
Foreign direct investment (FDI) has become a major focus for Americans. In
particular, “foreign investment inflows balance the deficit in their export-import account,
which could result from a lack of private and government saving or government deficits”
(Ondrich and Wasylenko 1993). When the U.S. government is eager to attract foreign
firms, as most studies suggest, what are the factors that increase FDI inflows into the
U.S.? Studies in economics have focused on the market abilities as the determinant of
FDI inflows, but those of studies in political science have largely paid attention to the
institutional capacity and government variables as a set of FDI determinants (Chan 1995;
Ancharaz 2003). However, while those studies have tested the certain determinants of
FDI inflows at the country level and over-time, they have rarely focused on FDI inflows
in solely the country level. Although the U.S. has been one of the largest host countries
receiving FDI, there still exists a room to ask what the most influential factors that
increase the inward of FDI into the U.S. are.
Stringent labor protection and higher labor costs in host countries may be
perceived as negative operating conditions for foreign firms. For manufacturing in
∗
Prepared for presentation at the 80
th
Southern Political Science Association conference, New Orleans,
Louisiana, January 8-10, 2009. I thank the following individuals for their helpful comments: Sean
Nicholson-Crotty and Seoungjoun Won.
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Convention