The determinants of foreign direct investments : the case of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Singapore / Julienna Hassan

The purpose of the study is to identify the determinants of foreign direct investments in five selected countries which is Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Singapore. The study were conducted to get a clearer picture of the variables that may have an impact to a country's FDI inflow. The data was collected from the year 2004 to 2015. This study used multiple linear regression model with panel data for over 12 years of data analysis. The variables used for this study are macroeconomics indicators that is market size (measured by GDP), macroeconomic stability (measured by inflation rate), infrastructure facility (measured by fixed telephones subscriptions), and trade openness for independent variables and foreign direct investment for dependent variable. The data collected has been analysed by using E-Views 8.0 and were tested for assumptions. Normality test, serial correlation test and heteroscedasticity test were conducted on the data. All independent variables are expected to be significantly correlated with the dependent variable. The findings shows that the market size, infrastructure stability and trade openness is significant to the dependent variable, FDI. Macroeconomic stability, however, is an insignificant variable to FDI inflows in the five selected country which are Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Singapore.