Effects of foreign direct investments on high technology export: Data analysis for selected developing countries and Turkey

Abstract

High technology products are the products with high added value, competitive advantage in foreign trade and low demand flexibility. Therefore, developed countries that allocate great resources to R&D expenditures and innovation studies have a great advantage in foreign trade. Foreign direct investments and R&D expenditures are of great importance for developing countries, which have problems with foreign trade deficit and current account deficit, to produce and export more high-tech products. In this chapter, the effects of foreign direct investments and R&D expenditures on high technology product exports in 9 developing countries were analyzed by panel data analysis using data from the 2007-2019 period. In the long-term analysis results; It has been determined that the increases in foreign direct investment stock and R&D expenditures positively affect the high technology product exports of these countries. In other words, foreign direct investments to these countries and the R&D expenditures of these countries will positively affect the high technology product export rate in the exports of the countries' manufacturing industry products. Therefore, it can be said that countries should pay special attention to these factors. In the short-term analysis, it was observed that foreign direct investment stock and R&D expenditures increased the exports of high technology products. It is noteworthy that these effects are higher than the long-term effects. The causality relationships between the series were examined with the VECM causality test and it was observed that there was a long-term, not short-term, causality relationship from foreign direct investment stock and R&D expenditures to the share of high-tech products in exports of manufacturing industry products. It has only been determined that there is a weak short-term causality relationship from foreign direct investments to R&D expenditures.