해외직접투자가 전체 인구에 고르게 유익한지 아니면 부자나 빈자에 불균형하게 이점을 주는가는 하나의 쟁점이다. 본 연구는 이 문제를 재고한다. 1973년에서 2004년까지의 기간에 45개 선진국과 개발도상국으로 구성된 패널데이터에 패널문턱효과회귀방법을 적용하여 분 ...

해외직접투자가 전체 인구에 고르게 유익한지 아니면 부자나 빈자에 불균형하게 이점을 주는가는 하나의 쟁점이다. 본 연구는 이 문제를 재고한다. 1973년에서 2004년까지의 기간에 45개 선진국과 개발도상국으로 구성된 패널데이터에 패널문턱효과회귀방법을 적용하여 분석한 결과 대상 국가들을 금융발전의 정도에 따라 나누는 이중문턱효과의 존재에 대한 유의적인 증거를 발견하였다. 해외직접투자는 소득불균등을 심화하는 것으로 나타난다. 그리고 그 효과는 중간수준의 금융발전국가보다는 저수준과 고수준의 금융발전국가에서 훨씬 강한 것으로 나타났다.

A question as to whether FDI benefits the whole population equally or it disproportionately benefits the rich or the poor is controversial. This paper revisits the issue. By using a panel threshold regression approach to a panel of 45 advanced and dev ...

A question as to whether FDI benefits the whole population equally or it disproportionately benefits the rich or the poor is controversial. This paper revisits the issue. By using a panel threshold regression approach to a panel of 45 advanced and developing countries over the period 1973-2004, it finds significant evidence of a double threshold effect which separates countries based on their level of financial development. Specifically, FDI strengthens income inequality, but such a positive effect is much larger for countries in a regime with low and high levels of financial development than countries in the intermediate regime.

There is a fast growing literature on globalization and income inequality. This renewed interest is fueled by rising income inequality in OECD countries and some developing countries since 1970s that presumably have reached levels of prosperity w ...

There is a fast growing literature on globalization and income inequality. This renewed interest is fueled by rising income inequality in OECD countries and some developing countries since 1970s that presumably have reached levels of prosperity where inequality would level off as predicted by the Kuznets hypothesis. Coincident with worsening income distribution is the fact that the same countries have experienced an increase in international trade and financial markets liberalization, especially foreign direct investment (FDI). Although there has been an explosion of theoretical and empirical efforts to evaluate the link between globalization and labor market outcome, as pointed out by Dreher et al. (2009), there are a few econometric studies toward the core issue of whether globalization has significantly affects income inequality in the most developed and developing countries.
The question as to whether FDI benefits the whole population equally or it disproportionately benefits the rich or the poor is controversial. This study revisits the issue. In addition to sheer capital, FDI can encourage the adoption of new technology in the production process through technological spillovers, and may stimulate knowledge transfers both in terms of labor training and skill acquisition and by introducing alternative management practices and better organizational arrangements. However, spillovers are not automatically beneficial since local conditions such as educational, technological and/or infrastructure development have an important effect in influencing firms’ adoption of foreign technologies and skills. Along the same line, this study takes a step further and intends to make a contribution to current literature by investigating whether the extent of a nation’s financial development influences the contributions of FDI on income distribution.
By using a panel threshold regression approach to a panel of 45 advanced and developing countries over the period 1973-2004, it finds significant evidence of a double threshold effect which separates countries based on their level of financial development. Specifically, FDI strengthens income inequality, but such a positive effect is much larger for countries in a regime with low and high levels of financial development than countries in the intermediate regime.

JEL Classification: C23, F40, O15, O16

(연구결과)
This study finds novel preliminary results on the relevance of financial intermediation development to the FDI-inequality nexus. It finds that FDI strengthens income inequality, but such a positive effect is much larger for countries i ...

(연구결과)
This study finds novel preliminary results on the relevance of financial intermediation development to the FDI-inequality nexus. It finds that FDI strengthens income inequality, but such a positive effect is much larger for countries in a regime with low and high levels of financial development than countries in the intermediate regime.
These findings provide support to the hypothesis that technological differentials and the skill biased nature of new technologies may be important factors in shaping the distributional effects of FDI. When finance is low, only the rich can invest in technology and human capital and hence benefit from FDI. As finance develops, more people and firms are allowed to access new technology and accumulate human capital, therefore the positive impact of FDI on inequality decreases. However, the further advance in finance comes with higher inequality in the process of FDI liberalization, perhaps because market-based external financing becomes increasingly important as the financial system evolves (Bose, 2005). That effect, however, is not readily captured using standard bank-based measures for financial development. Increasing dependence on equity markets hence reduces the importance of banking finance.

(활용방안)
Finding financial thresholds may have important policy implications. On the one hand, it adds one more dimension of explanations into the current literature concerning nonlinearity in the FDI–inequality link and the needs for governments to consider the levels of financial development to explore the benefit from FDI liberalization. On the other hand, it highlights a potential effect of financial development on inequality through the indirect channel, a possible mechanism through which financial reform policy affects income distribution.