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Geographic Determinants of Australian Foreign Direct Investment

Kishor Sharma and Yapa Bandara
Working Paper No. 05/07
June 2007

About the Authors

Charles Sturt University – Faculty of Business Working Paper Series

Managing Editor: Associate Professor Jayne Bisman, School of Accounting, Bathurst

Editors: Dr P. Mathews, School of Commerce, Wagga Wagga
Associate Professor M. O'Mullane, School of Business, Albury
Dr R. Tierney, School of Marketing and Management, Bathurst Dr D Ardagh, School of Commerce, Wagga Wagga
Ms K Mather, School of Computing and Mathematics, Wagga Wagga

The Faculty of Business Working Paper Series is intended to provide staff and students with a means of communicating new and evolving ideas in order to encourage academic debate. Working papers, as the title suggests, should not necessarily be taken as completed works or final expressions of opinion. All working papers are subject to review prior to publication by one or more editors or referees familiar with the discipline area. Normally, working papers may be freely quoted and/or reproduced provided proper reference to the author and source is given. When a working paper is published on a restricted basis, notice of such restriction will appear on this page.

Table of Contents

Abstract

The volume of investment that has flowed from Australia into the outside world, and its implications for economic policy, has attracted substantial policy debate among Australian policy makers, particularly in the context of regionalisation of the world economy. Using hypotheses from investment demand model and new trade theory we investigate if market size, its growth rate, openness, regional economic integration, cultural similarity and the availability of knowledge capital have any impact in attracting Australian investments offshore. Our results suggest that countries which are open, have a large domestic market and stable macro-economic environment tend to attract most Australian FDI. Regional integration, and the similarity in langauge and culture do not have any effect in attracting FDI from Australia. This result has a significant policy implications not only for Australia, but also for other countries who are increasingly engaged in forming trading blocs like Australia-US free trade agreements (AUSFTA).

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