Why doesn't capital flow from rich to poor countries? An empirical investigation

We examine the role of dierent explanations for the lack of flows of capital from rich to poor countries−the Lucas paradox−in an empirical framework. Broadly speaking, the theoretical explanations for this paradox include dierences in fundamentals aecting the production structure versus international capital market imperfections. Our empirical evidence, based on cross-country regressions, shows that for the period 1971−1998, institutional quality is the most important causal variable explaining the Lucas paradox. Human capital and asymmetric information play a role as determinants of capital inflows but these variables cannot fully account for the paradox