Measurement and Application of Outward Foreign Direct Investment Competitiveness

With the development of multinational corporation business and the establishment of more closed relationship between partner countries, international investment tends to replace international trade to act as the most significant role in the stage of world economy. Since competitiveness of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has been the component of international competitiveness, the research on the measurement of OFDI competitiveness is of theoretical and practical significance. On the basis of reviewing the existing literatures on measurement of international competitiveness, this study transforms the popular indicators of international competitiveness into three kinds of OFDI competitiveness indicators, namely investment market share, investment competitiveness, and revealed investment competitive advantage. Furthermore, the study chooses the top 10 home economies in 2016 OFDI flow as the objects, especially USA, Japan and China, to adapt these three indices to assessing the OFDI competitiveness for top 10 economies and their major industries. At the end, this study also states the future research direction and adjustment methods of these indices and looks forward to applying them into the study of international investment division in the development of world economy.