How is Foreign Direct Investment decline associated to productivity?

#innovation #technology #foreigndirectinvestment #productivity Source: Financial Post https://financialpost.com/opinion/canada-lost-225-billion-foreign-investment-since-2016 Jack Mintz makes mention that "Canada has always relied heavily on FDI inflows to grow our economy. At times, we have been uneasy about foreign takeovers of major Canadian companies. But we have benefited from the new technology, management and jobs FDI usually brings." The questions associated to net (the balance of) Foreign Direct Investment are rising as our growth is slowing down substantially and our productivity is lagging dramatically. Perhaps these questions should be answered next:

How much FDI can be directly associated to GDP growth in Canada?

How much of that FDI can be directly associated to technology transfer and innovation?

Is FDI more efficient than Canadian funds at identifying and creating growth?

Global Affairs Canada has detailed policy documents on the topic and partially answer these three questions in Section 2.0 of: State of Trade 2021 - A Closer Look at Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/state-trade-commerce-international/2021.aspx?lang=eng

Some updated figures exist in the 2023 version of the policy document. The 2023 version is however very disappointing in terms of pertinent information and is much less academically and intellectually rigourous. We say this in the most professional sense: the trends are presented in a fashion that assist to validate political decisions and macro trends rather than to analyse or measure the direct impact of Canadian policies.