Does regionalism matter? Local politics and foreign direct investment in South Korea
Asian Education and Development Studies
ISSN: 2046-3162
Article publication date: 12 March 2019
Issue publication date: 9 July 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how political/authoritarian regionalism affects foreign direct investment (FDI) in sub-national states in South Korea.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs statistical analysis to examine the relationship between regionalism and FDI, along with historical description of regionalism in South Korea.
Findings
The analyses suggest that not only authoritarian regionalism influence foreign investment to the region but also political regionalism matters. Sub-national states with higher authoritarian regionalism receive less foreign investment while sub-national states with high political regionalism, which imply political stability, receive more FDI than others.
Originality/value
The paper examined how local politics influence foreign investments in South Korea, and suggests stronger decentralization will positively influence FDI in the future.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Korean National Research Foundation (NRF)’s Social Science Korea (SSK) Grant (NRF-2017S1A3A2066657) and Korea University Grant (K1806891).
Citation
Kim, D.-H. and Paek, S. (2019), "Does regionalism matter? Local politics and foreign direct investment in South Korea", Asian Education and Development Studies, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 295-306. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-02-2018-0041
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited