UNEMPLOYMENT EFFECTS OF GREENFIELD AND BROWNFIELD INVESTMENTS IN POST-TRANSITION EUROPEAN UNION MEMBERS

International direct and portfolio investments have gone up considerably as of mid-1980s. The foreign direct investments with characteristic of long term horizon may affect the economic variables through know-how and technology transfer, physical capital expansion, and new job creation. However, foreign direct investments may have potential to negatively affect the domestic competitors with insufficient competitiveness in the industry. So, the economic effects of FDI inflows have been one of the much-debated and studied issues in the international economics. This study investigates the unemployment effects of greenfield and brownfield investments in 11 posttransition EU members over 2003–2017 period through panel cointegration and causality tests. The article fills the gap in the literature, because the relevant empirical literature has generally researched the impact of total FDI flows on the unemployment/employment. The empirical findings revealed that brownfield investments raised the unemployment in overall panel in the long run, but greenfield investments had no significant impacts on the unemployment in overall panel in the long run. However, greenfield investments decreased the unemployment in Croatia, Hungary, and Slovenia, and raised the unemployment in Poland and Slovakia, while brownfield investments raised the unemployment only in Czechia. Consequently, it is not very reasonable to compare our findings with the results of other studies using total FDI inflows as the independent variable. But, it is generally consistent with theoretical and empirical expectations.