Does foreign direct investment and environmental degradation matter for poverty? Evidence from developing countries

Abstract

This paper stains to investigate the causality between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Carbon dioxide emission (CO2) and poverty using simultaneous-equations models (SEM's) for a global panel of 98 developing countries over the period 1995–2017. We also implement these empirical models for three regions sub-panels: Asia, Africa and Latin America. Global panel results showed that there is a bi-directional causal relationship between FDI and poverty as well as CO2 emission and poverty. However, there is unidirectional causal relationship that runs from FDI to CO2 emission. Findings showed also a significant negative relationship between FDI and poverty for all groups of countries with the exception of the African panel. Other important results showed a negative impact of FDI on CO2 emission in African countries, an inverted U-shaped relationship between the two variables for Asian economies and a positive effect of FDI on environmental quality in Latin America.