Corruption and market attractiveness influences on different types of FDI

Previous studies have proposed that a compensatory model predicts the level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in a country; FDI levels are a result of 'trade-offs' between the positive effect of market attractiveness and the negative influence of corruption. In contrast, we hypothesize and find that the compensatory relationship only holds for market-seeking investment; for resource-seeking FDI the model appears to be noncompensatory. Greater market attractiveness mitigates the negative impact of corruption on market-seeking investment, but the ability of market attractiveness to mitigate the negative impact of corruption on resource-seeking FDI quickly disappears as corruption levels increase. Implications and future research directions are discussed.