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Foreign direct investment (FDI) provides many African countries an important source of capital inflow. Despite notable improvements in these capital‐scarce countries' economic, political and social conditions, foreign investors have not considered them viable host locations. Since FDI brings enormous spillovers to its host, some countries have recently institutionalized globalization as the catalyst for reversing the trend. Against this backdrop, we examine the FDI‐globalization nexus across 47 African countries for the 1996–2016 period. Using the augmented mean group estimator, the results suggest that FDI in Africa is indeed globalization‐induced. Moreover, we find this positive nexus to be driven by the economic dimension of globalization. Overall, we demonstrate the potential of globalization in stimulating an FDI boom in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to reduce environmental degradation has led to the identification of several factors influencing environmental degradation, with the inflows of foreign direct investments (FDI) touted as a key factor. However, findings produced from the existing studies on FDI‐environmental degradation nexus are far from being conclusive, leaving policymakers under quandary regarding the precise effect of FDI on environmental degradation. We contribute to the FDI‐environmental degradation nexus debate by examining how economic development and globalization thresholds influences the role of FDI in environmental degradation in industrialized countries over the 1991–2016 period. We invoke a recently developed fixed effect panel threshold model estimation procedure that does not impose a prior functional form of the threshold. We find that FDI inflows mitigate environmental degradation when countries' levels of economic development and globalization are below the estimated thresholds. However, above the thresholds, higher FDI inflows significantly degrade the environment. Thus, unbridled economic development and globalization do not permit FDI to reduce environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We pioneer empirical investigation into the causal relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and globalization in Africa with the aid of the Dumitresu-Hurlin panel Granger causality test. Using a panel dataset of 50 countries for the period 1996–2016, we find evidence of unidirectional causality from globalization to FDI. Considering the dimensions of globalization, we find evidence of unidirectional causality from social and political globalization to FDI while, in the case of economic globalization, the direction of causality moves from FDI. However, at the country level, there are substantial variations in terms of the causal relations. Thus, making policies regarding FDI–globalization should be treated with caution as one–size–does–not–fit all given the differential causal nexuses in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the burgeoning literature on the globalization-environmental degradation nexus, this area of empirical interest is still riddled with ambiguity. Thus, based on an extended Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology (STIRPAT) model, we re-investigate the effect of globalization on environmental degradation for 27 selected industrialized countries over the period 1991–2016. More specifically, we shed light into how overall globalization and its various components – economic, social and political globalization – affect environmental degradation. We advance existing literature by considering a measurement approach which disaggregates overall, economic, social and political globalization into their de facto and de jure aspects. Using the augmented mean group estimator, we find that overall and economic globalization reduce environmental degradation while social and political globalization do not exert any significant effect on globalization. With respect to the de facto and de jure aspects, we observe that, while only de facto economic globalization mitigates environmental degradation, de jure overall, economic and social globalization also dampen environmental degradation. We provide some policy implications in the end. • This study investigates the effect of globalization on environmental degradation. • This study employs the augmented mean group estimator. • Overall and economic globalization reduce environmental degradation. • De facto economic globalization mitigates environmental degradation. • De jure overall, economic and social globalization limit environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]