is it possible to regress a period average of your DV onto annual values of IVs. My DV is Chinese OFDI to African host countries and my IVs are GDP Inflation geodistance fdiopeness traderelationship landlock and institutional quality.

the reason for wanting to use a period average is to deal with volatile changes in fdi and smooth these out for each country. if this is possible/a correct thing to do what regression would this be.and what would the implications be