Förhållandet mellan FDI och CO2-tillväxt: Fallet för länder i Afrika söder om Sahara

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to analyze the environmental impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last decades, increasing levels of environmental degradation have been recorded and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a region that is particularly vulnerable to these climatic changes. It has been claimed that the environmental degradation, with rising levels of CO2 emission, is especially attributable to globalization where FDI have played an increasingly important role in the increase of economic activities. However, the environmental implications of FDI are not easily identified and there are contradictory views and arguments of its impact. In this study we examine the two well-known theories: The Pollution Halo Hypothesis and the Pollution Haven Hypothesis. The Pollution Halo Hypothesis claims that FDI from developed to developing countries is a positive contributor of more efficient and modern technology with positive spillover effects for the environment. On the contrary Pollution Haven Hypothesis claims that FDI has a negative effect on the environment since poorer countries, with weaker environmental regulations, are used for pollution-intensive industries. In this study, we use CO2 emission as an indicator of air pollution for the period 1980-2014 with panel data from 43 SSA countries to analyze the impact of FDI. Our result is that FDI does not have a significant effect on CO2 emissions in SSA. However, if we limit the research to the resource-rich countries in the region, FDI has significantly increased CO2 emission.