ASSESSMENT OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT CONVERGENCE POSSIBILITIES IN THE COUNTRIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.

The article distinguishes factors determining foreign direct investments and summarizes their classification. It has been determined that the factors may be classified according to various criteria, which depend on the nature of the research and the choice of the researcher. Different classifications may be used in the same research, and the factors may be divided into macroeconomic and microeconomic, general and specific, depending on the investor type or independent of it, important or irrelevant when investing into certain economic activities. It has been noticed that in many cases the general macroeconomic and specific factors are assessed in works of macroeconomic nature. Based on the research aim some additional aspect (investor size, type, specific characteristics of the host country, economic activity that is being invested into) may also be assessed. Having summarized the indices applied to convergence identification in the empirical research their quantitative values have been calculated, and they have shown that although there is convergence with regard to foreign direct investments in the EU-27 countries, there are significant differences in separate countries, grounding the necessity to improve their investment climate by preparing an appropriate regulatory and stimulation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]