Bibliometric Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment's Impact on Economic and Social Development

Investments are important for companies that want to grow and compete with others. Foreign direct investments (FDI) are widely regarded as a primary engine for economic modernisation, yet their actual impact on growth remains a subject of significant debate. Existing literature suggests that FDI promotes development through several key channels, including increased productivity, technology transfer, the introduction of new management techniques, and the expansion of international production networks. This article studies the impact of FDI on economic and social development by analysing relevant papers that underline the benefits of foreign investments, the determinants of this type of financing, and the results offered by the studied literature regarding the subject. As a result, the research tries to answer questions in relation to the evolution of the topic, using the bibliometric analysis and describing the results for the evolution of published papers, most important journals, authors, institutions, cited papers, and WoS categories. The search conducted in WoS Core Collection for the syntax used for the topic resulted in 3,051 documents, which were analysed with Biblioshiny software. The paper also used VOSviewer to highlight the way keywords are connected. This paper contributes to the field by highlighting that while the potential for growth is high, the effectiveness of FDI depends on institutional factors like government size or inflation. Nevertheless, the topic has undergone changes in recent years as scholars have focused in the last decade on environmental aspects and sustainability.