Does attracting FDI affect population health? New evidence from a multi-dimensional measure of health

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) on population health. For this purpose, we rely on a new measure of health, which not only takes into account life expectancy, but also morbidity and allows us to evaluate both quality and length of life. We apply a new instrumental variable approach, based on the diffuse characteristic of globalization, to a panel of 143 countries over the period 1990-2019 and find an overall positive association of FDI with health. However, we also demonstrate that this positive relationship decreases with countries' per capita GDP. We reveal that developing economies have strongly benefited from inward FDI but, more developed economies less so. For the most-developed countries in our sample, the impact is even negative, but we demonstrate that higher employment protection, which is associated with a lower level of job insecurity, allows countries to decrease this pernicious effect.

Keywords: Employment protection; Foreign direct investment; Instrumental variables; Population health.