The long run impact of foreign direct investment, exports, imports and GDP: evidence for Spain from an ARDL approach

This paper analyses the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), exports and economic growth in Spain using annual time series data for the period 1970 to 2016. To examine these linkages the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration for the long-run is applied. The error correction model (ECM) is used to examine the short-run dynamics and the vector error correction model (VECM) Granger causality approach is used to investigate the direction of causality. The results confirm a long-run relationship among the examined variables. The Granger causality test indicates a strong unidirectional causality between FDI and exports with direction from FDI to exports. Besides, the results for the relationship between FDI and economic growth are interesting and indicate that there is no significant Granger causality from FDI to economic growth and vice-versa.