Dataset for Democracy and Foreign Direct Investment in BRICS TM countries

The study, first of all, tested the hypothesis of “there is a relationship between democracy and FDI” to answer the research question raised at the beginning. The research sample was selected as BRICS-TM (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Türkiye, Mexico) countries that have come to the fore in the world economy in recent years and whose strategic importance and power are expected to increase in the upcoming years. These countries were preferred because of their potential to attract FDI. FDI (LNFDI) was modeled as the dependent variable in this study. The democracy variable (DEMOC) was fictionalized as the independent variable. In addition, inflation (INF) and per capita income (PGDP) variables affecting FDI were added to the model as control variables based on the literature. First of all, the data on the indices of "political rights" and "civil liberties", which are accepted as indicators of "democracy" in the literature, were collected from the Freedom House database, and then the means of these indices were included in the analysis as values ​​for the variable of democracy. The index takes a value between 1 and 7; 1 is the best state of the level of democracy and 7 is the worst state of the level of democracy. Index values were attached to the model by scaling so that the minimum was 0 and the maximum was 100 in case of problems in analyses, calculation, and interpretation. In this study, inflation and income per capita variables were preferred in terms of both being the most preferred variables in the literature (details are given in Literature Review) and being the variables that affect foreign direct capital as the most inclusive in terms of macroeconomics.

本研究首先检验「民主与外商直接投资（Foreign Direct Investment, FDI）之间存在关联」这一假设，以解答开篇提出的研究问题。研究样本选取近年来在全球经济中崭露头角、且预计未来战略重要性与综合实力将进一步提升的BRICS-TM成员国，即巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国、南非、土耳其、墨西哥。选择上述国家作为样本，缘于其具备吸引外商直接投资的潜力。本研究将以LNFDI标识的外商直接投资设为因变量，将民主变量（DEMOC）设为自变量。此外，基于既有学术文献，将影响外商直接投资的通货膨胀（INF）与人均收入（PGDP）变量作为控制变量纳入模型。首先，研究收集了学术界公认的「民主」衡量指标——「政治权利」与「公民自由」指数数据，数据来源于自由之家（Freedom House）数据库；随后将上述两项指数的均值作为民主变量的取值纳入分析。该指数的取值区间为1至7，其中1代表民主水平的最优状态，7则代表最差状态。为规避分析、计算与解读过程中可能出现的问题，对指数取值进行标准化处理，将其缩放至0至100的区间后纳入模型。本研究选取通货膨胀率与人均收入变量，一方面缘于二者是既有学术文献中最常用的控制变量（详细说明参见文献综述部分），另一方面因其是从宏观经济维度而言最具包容性的外商直接投资影响因素。