外商直接投资(Foreign Direct Investment,FDI)理论与区位决策已成为多个学科的热点研究领域。自Hymer垄断优势理论诞生以来,FDI理论发展迅速,1980年代前.FDI理论主要集中于对发达国家FDI行为的研究。并形成了FDI理论主流学说。之后新兴工业化国家FDI的不断繁盛催生了研究发展中国家的FDI理论。但无论发达国家的主流FDI理论还是发展中国家的新兴FDI理论.都只能在特定范围、特定时期某种程度上解释某些国家(地区)的FDI行为。已有FDI理论远没有满足现实需求,系统和成熟的FDI一般理论框架还有待建立。FDI区位决策研究有局部均衡和一般均衡分析两类。局部均衡分析早期注重传统因素对FDI区位的影响.近年更关注集聚经济和区域一体化因素的作用。但如何精确测度集聚经济及将其与传统因素分离还有待深入研究。一般均衡分析理论上是FDI区位决策的理想研究框架。但实际操作中存在缺乏理论基础和恰当的实证规范等问题。
With the growth of FDI and its more and more important role in globalized economies, the issues on FDI theory and FDI location decision have become interesting topics in many disciplines. The FDI theory in the true sense emerged in the early 1960s, and since the Hymer's Monopolistic Advantage Theory, the FDI theories have emerged one after another incessantly. Before 1980s, the theoretical FDI researches were mainly focus on the FDI behaviors in the developed country, and there emerged a series FDI theories such as Monopolistic Advantage Theory, International Product Life Cycle Theory, Comparative Advantage Theory, Theory of Dynamic Location Advantage, Internalization Theory and Eclectic Theory of International Production, in which can represent the development vein and the essentially mainstream theories. In 1980s, the growing prosperous outward FDI in the emerging industrialized countries gave the birth of the FDI theories for the developing countries. The representative theories include Development Stage Theory, The Theory of Small-scale Technology, The Theory of Localized Technological Change and The Theory of Technological Competence. Competitive Advantage Theory and Strategic Alliance Theory are the most recent progress for the FDI theory. Either the mainstream FDI theories for the developed countries or those for the developing countries can only explain the FDI behaviors for some countries (regions) in some specific scope and conditions to some extent. The current FDI theories are far from satisfying the real needs. So more systematical and mature FDI theory framework is still a subject for the future research. There are partial-quilibrium analysis and general-equilibrium analysis for the FDI location decision research. The former is focus on how single exogenous factor affect the firm's FDI decision, while the latter focus on a model framework and empirical specification that lays out the primary long-run determinants of FDI location. In the early years the classic factors such as size of market,