The nexus between foreign direct investment and economic growth has long been among the most debated issues in macroeconomics. Some studies find a positive link between the two factors, but others find no evidence. This current research fills the gap by analysing the causal nexus between foreign direct investment and economic growth in Indonesia for the period 1970-2018. Indonesia as a developing country is one of the largest recipients of FDI flow; hence the study on the impact of FDI on the economic growth is very much important. This current research employs a contemporary time-series procedure, involving several unit-root tests namely Augmented-Dickey-Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP), Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS), and Lee-Strazicich (LS), an Auto-Regressive-Distributed-Lag (ARDL) bounds-testing method for cointegration, and Granger causality test. The findings provide evidence of long-run and short-run causal direction from GDP to FDI. In contrast, FDI generates only a short-run relationship on GDP. The Granger causality test confirms the finding in ARDL that there is a unidirectional causality running from GDP to FDI.

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Youth unemployment is a contemporary socioeconomic problem in many countries. Although it is a negative phenomenon, this number can be translated into different perspectives as it offers plenty of available job force not only in terms of age and easily adaptable workers but also opportunities for low-wage workers. Unfortunately, despite having a high Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth rate, Indonesia still suffers from the youth unemployment problem. The research observed a relationship between youth unemployment and FDI in the case of Indonesia from 1991 until 2019. Because of a different situation faced by female and male workers, the research also extended the impact of FDI into gender-specific effects. Data were from World Development Indicator (WDI) in 1991-2019. The short- and long-run situations were analyzed using the Auto-Regressive-Distribution-Lag (ARDL) technique. Based on the findings, it is found that in the short run, FDI can increase youth unemployment in Indonesia. This situation can be due to the reallocation industry, which requires workers’ adjustment. However, in the long run, FDI significantly reduces youth unemployment. Therefore, it concludes that FDI in Indonesia can provide employment opportunities for young people. Next, FDI is found to have a negative and significant effect on female youth unemployment. Meanwhile, there is no significant effect found in male youth unemployment.

Political risk is a risk that occurs due to political disturbances in a country that can affect its economy. This risk is one of the risks that investors consider when investing in a country. High political risks can create obstacles that potentially disrupt investors' business operations. This study aims to see the impact of political risk on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the ASEAN region in 1996-2019 using panel data analysis with the best model, namely the fixed effect model (FEM). Sources of data in this study came from the World Governance Indicator (WGI) and World Development Indicator (WDI). The results of this study indicate that political risk as reflected in political stability and regulatory quality has a significant influence on FDI inflows in the ASEAN region. Political instability could make investors reluctant to invest in the country due to the concern about disturbances that will occur in the future. The role of governments in ASEAN countries is needed to maintain political stability and attract more foreign investors to invest in the ASEAN region. In addition, a country needs to have good regulatory quality so that investors do not experience obstacles in the early stages of investment. Complicated licensing and many regulations can be one of the obstacles in investing.