Global capitalism and the flow of foreign direct investment to non-core nations, 1980-1996: A quantitative, cross-national analysis

This paper updates an earlier quantitative cross-national study (London and Ross 1995) by examining a more recent time period and re-specifying the original model in a number of significant ways. These include the incorporation of measures of (a) International Monetary Fund penetration into non-core nations (demonstrating that IMF conditionality increases the flow of FDI), (b) the presence of "attractive investment opportunities" in nations (to incorporate a predictor suggested by neoclassical economic theory), and (c) an interaction term that points to the multiplicative significance of intranational and international factors. Our findings generally confirm those of the earlier study and produce some significant new results.