This article classifies the extreme gross foreign direct investment (FDI) flow episodes into four types. It empirically investigates the determinants of each type by estimating complementary log-log (Clog–log) and probit regressions for 50 developing economies over the period 1990–2018. We document that domestic GDP growth rate, inflation, institutional quality, and human capital are the major empirical drivers of FDI flows. The world uncertainty index (WUI) is negatively associated with FDI inflows toward developing countries. Moreover, we find that the domestic GDP growth rate is positively associated with the probability of having FDI surge and FDI flight. In contrast, inflation is negatively linked with FDI surge episodes. These findings provide a better understanding of the empirical determinants of FDI flows to and from developing countries. The findings also help to understand the behavior of FDI extreme movements.
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