PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2014, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (12): 1601-1613.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2014.12.003

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatiotemporal change of foreign direct investment and mechanism in the Pan-Yangtze River Delta area under the global financial crisis

Jiawei WU1,2(), Feng YUAN1, Weiguo LV1, Guiling WANG2,3   

  1. 1. Nanjing Institute of Geography & Limnology, CAS, Nanjing 210008, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
    3. Xinjiang Institute of Ecology & Geography, CAS, Urumqi 830011, China
  • Online:2014-12-19 Published:2014-12-19

Abstract:

The regional disparity and determining factors of foreign direct investment (FDI) locations are influenced by industrial characteristics, corporate attributes, and the social and economic environments of the home country and receiving country. Changes in the location choice of FDI and influencing factors have occurred under the background of global financial crisis. Based on the theory of path dependence, we choose the Pan-Yangtze River Delta area as an example to study such change. First, we analyzed the process of spatiotemporal evolution of FDI in terms of total amount, target industry, and location choice before and after the global financial crisis. Then we explored the change in the determining factors of FDI locations and their influences through a panel data analysis model. Our study suggests that the evolution of the location choice of FDI and its influencing factors in the Pan-Yangtze River Delta area followed the path dependence model. The original evolution path of FDI was shocked by the global financial crisis, and with the dynamic change of internal and external factors such as market circumstances, factor cost, innovative milieu, agglomeration economies, suck cost, and institutional environment and their influences, the trends of total amount, target industry, and location choice of FDI showed high complexity and diversity. Specifically, the total amount of FDI experienced negative growth under the economic crisis, but along with the resuscitation of the world economy, its growth has recovered. Although the regional difference of target industry is huge, services will become the largest business for FDI in China. Moreover, because of the transformation of factor cost, policy environment, among others, it is an inevitable trend that FDI of labor/resource/pollution-intensive industries will shift from coastal areas to central and western China. However, on account of the market circumstances, innovative milieu, agglomeration economies, and so on, FDI in high-end manufacturing and service sectors will continue to gather towards urban areas.

Key words: FDI, location choice, path dependence, shock, global financial crisis, panel data analysis, the Pan-Yangtze River Delta

CLC Number: 

  • F207