Why doesn't capital flow from rich to poor countries?

We examine the role of different explanations for the lack of flows of capital from rich to poor countries - the Lucas paradox - in an empirical framework. Broadly speaking, the theoretical explanations for this paradox include differences in fundamentals affecting the production structure versus capital market imperfections. Our cross-country regressions show that, for the period 1971-1998, institutional quality is the most important causal variable explaining the Lucas paradox. Human capital and asymmetric information do play a role as determinants of capital inflows but these variables cannot fully account for the paradox.