Abstract

The thesis aims to investigate the determinants of IFD and OFDI and their impact on economic growth. To bridge the research gap, this study uses China as a case study and structures three empirical chapters to investigate the relationship between IFDI, OFDI and economic growth.The structure of the study consists of six chapters, the first empirical study uses time series data and applies the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) techniques to investigate the determinants of IFDI from 1980 to 2023, aiming to investigate the determinants of China’s IFDI. The findings demonstrate market openness, human capital, inflation and market size are the key determinants in China’s IFDI. Next, as one of the research contributions, the second empirical study is based on the Dunning’s OLI Eclectic Paradigm theory and Investment Development Path theory by employing panel data and applying the Panel-Corrected Standard Error (PCSE) model, aiming to address the determinants of China’s OFDI from 2003 to 2023. According to the findings, China’s OFDI is primarily impacted by the geographical distance and exchange rate between China and its recipient countries. Moreover, recipient countries’ abundant natural resources, high degree of market openness, high-skilled human capital and technological development attract China’s OFDI. As a final research contribution of this study, based on the country level, the third empirical study investigates the impact of IFDI and OFDI on China’s economic growth from 1982 to 2023 by using time series data and applying the Error Correction Model (ECM) technique. The findings show that OFDI, domestic investment, human capital, market openness, and inflation can stimulate China’s economic growth. Moreover, IFDI can contribute to China’s growth through the spillover effect of human capital and technology. While, IFDI has a negative and significant impact on China’s growth.

Awarding Institution(s)

University of Plymouth

Supervisor

Rania Naguib, Peijie Wang

Keywords

Economic growth

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2026

Embargo Period

2026-04-29

Deposit Date

April 2026

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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