Outward FDI effects on the Portuguese Trade Balance, 1996-2007

• Autor(a) principal: Fonseca, Miguel
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Mendonça, António, Passos, José
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/857
• topic: Foreign Direct Investment; Trade; Gravity Model; Portugal

Given the increased internationalisation of the Portuguese economy through outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), particularly on the Portuguese-speaking countries, our main objective is to discuss the empirical relationship between this outward FDI and trade. We use panel data analysis within a framework of gravity equations for exports and imports, with a sample composed by EU-15, U.S.A., Brazil, Angola, Japan and China, for the period 1996-2007. Our main conclusion is that the empirical evidence for Portugal is consistent with a substitution hypothesis between direct investment abroad and trade, and consequently we detect a negative trade balance effect with the majority of countries in our sample, excepting Angola and, in a lesser extension, Spain.