Recent economic literature highlights that migrant networks help to overcome theinformal barriers that exist in the international markets and boost international investment.Empirical studies on different countries confirm this prediction. This paper estimates (OLS-IV) aneconometric model to study the impact of both emigration and immigration on Italy’s bilateralforeign direct investment (FDI). The main result is that only the Italian diaspora has a significantpositive effect on Italy’s both inward and outward FDI. A theoretical framework, a profile of thediaspora and of immigration in Italy and some exemplary entrepreneurial histories help to interpretthe econometric evidence.