Foreign Direct Investment and Pesticide Use Intensity in Less-Developed Countries: A Quantitative Investigation

A growing area of empirical literature in sociology investigates the social and environmental impacts of foreign direct investment. Building on macrosociological theorization of foreign capital dependence and prior research, I test the hypothesis that less-developed countries with higher levels of foreign capital penetration in the primary sector use a greater amount of pesticides per hectare of arable and permanent cropland. Findings for the ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and robust regression analyses of 40 less-developed countries confirm the hypothesis, and underscore the need for social scientists to assess the effects of foreign capital penetration in different sectors.