A Comparative Study of Determinants of International Capital Flows to Asian and Latin American Emerging Countries

In this paper, we focus on the determinants of foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment. Applying static and dynamic panel data models of six Asian countries and seven Latin American countries in the period from 1981 to 2011, we find that the characteristic of capital flows has locality, and both domestic and global factors can explain the capital flows to emerging markets, such as GDP, trade openness, financial interrelations, and interest rates. The result also shows expectation is an important driving factor: FDI is more prone to be affected by economic expectation while FPI is exchange rate expectation. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.