Globalization and Foreign Direct Investment in the GCC Countries : A Recipe for Post COVID-19 Recovery

This study investigates the long-run relationship between the de jure economic, political, and social globalization and foreign direct investments in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to establish whether policies that foster trade and investment relations among geographical entities can help revive the GCC countries from the prevailing economic debacles of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study is driven by the GCC’s quest to fully overcome the economic challenges occasioned by the outbreak of the global pandemic and position itself as the most potent regional economic bloc in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The study employs the panel data of the six GCC countries of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia from 1971 to 2017. The findings of the panel fully modified ordinary least square regression estimation show that the de jure economic and social globalization have a significant positive impact on the region’s foreign direct investment inflows. The impact of the de jure political globalization on foreign direct investment is statistically significant but negatively signed. Based on the preceding findings, we offer some holistic policy recommendations to the GCC region as recipes for timely recovery from the economic impact of COVID-19 and beyond