Foreign Direct Investment Inflows and Economic Growth: Evidence from Selected Islamic State Countries

Foreign direct investment (FDI) as a growth accelerating component has received a great attention in developed countries even in developing and less developed countries during recent years. It has a matter of greater concern for the economists how FDI affects economic growth of the host country economy. In closed economy there is no access to the foreign instruments and savings, this type of economy solely based on the domestic savings and investment sources. But in open economy, the investment comes from both sources either from domestic savings or foreign capital inflows like FDI. FDI enables the host country to achieve the investment level beyond its capacity to improve GDP and economic growth. FDI encourages the process of economic growth by filling up the saving-investment gap; transferring advanced technology; new entrepreneurship. This study investigates the impact of Foreign Direct Investment on economic growth in 30 Islamic countries. The econometric model is estimated by using Pooled Mean Group (PMG) for dynamic heterogeneous panels over the period 1992-2016. The results of the study show that FDI inflows have positive and significant effects on economic growth. Of course, the impacts of interaction terms between FDI and human capital; FDI, and trade openness on economic growth are more than each of them separately in the long and short run. The study suggests that the Islamic governments should design and implement appropriate fiscal, monetary and trade policies to make and improve an enabling environment to attract foreign capital inflows as a supplementary source of domestic investment.