The Growth of Foreign Direct Investment in Europe

Abstract

Increasing attention has been paid in Europe in recent years to the question of why firms invest abroad. This reflects both the rapid growth in foreign direct investment within Europe, along with recent improvements in the quality and availability of data. At the heart of the debate is a focus on the costs and benefits of foreign investment, such as whether inward investment affects employment and economic growth and whether outward investment is simply ‘job exporting‘, with firms moving to low-cost, labour-abundant locations. An understanding of the motives behind firms’ decisions to invest overseas is of particular importance for the UK, whose aggregate stocks of outward and inward foreign direct investment reached 30 per cent and 21 per cent of GDP respectively at the end of 1995.