The Determinants of Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: A Closer Look

Over the last fifteen years, China rapidly expanded its outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) through remarkable economic growth and the “go global” policy. Chinese firms explored investment avenues especially in developing and emerging countries. As a result, China became the third largest contributor of OFDI. We examine the determinants of Chinese OFDI in 67 countries during the period lasting from 2006 to 2015 using the feasible generalized least square method. We find that the size of the economy, market opportunities, cost advantages due to low wage structure, ease of doing business, country risk, and geographical proximity are the prominent factors leading to changes in Chinese OFDI in developing and emerging economies. We find that China’s investments in different developing and emerging countries are driven by a different set of factors and the determinants of Chinese OFDI vary in low and high per capita income countries.     

跨国公司行业选择与地点选择战略的相关性

行业选择和地点选择分别是跨国公司进入战略的主要论题,但现有研究缺少对两者之间是否存在相关性的分析。本文以中国FDI的“引进来”部分（IFDI）和“走出去”部分（OFDI）为倒,分析中国作为东道国引进外资时和其作为母国对外投资时在行业选择上的差异;并考虑地点选择因素,研究“走出去”的中国企业在发达国家和发展中国家的行业选择上是否存在差异,以及在中国投资的发达国家和发展中国家在行业选择上是否存在区别。通过跟踪200家外商来华投资企业和40家中国对外投资企业（118个项目）的投资产业、母国和东道国信息,运用描述统计和卡方检验得出实证结论：外商来华投资和中国对外投资在行业选择和地点选择上都存在差别;发达国家和发展中国家在华投资行业的技术含量有显著不同,即跨国公司的行业选择与地点选择存在相关性;但中国企业在对外投资中受资源寻求动机的强烈影响,其到发达国家和发展中国家进行投资时在行业选择上没有体现出差异性。     

外商直接投资对中国环境污染影响的再考察——基于外资来源和行业差异视角

基于中国城市统计年鉴数据和中国工业企业数据库,采用GMM估计实证检验了外商直接投资(FDI)对于中国环境污染的影响效应。研究结果表明,FDI对于不同污染物的影响效应存在巨大差别,FDI提高了工业废水排放,降低了工业二氧化硫排放。进一步分析表明,造成这种现象的原因是港澳台投资和外国投资的质量和行业分布差异。港澳台投资具有负面的环境绩效,而外国投资对中国的环境污染状况具有改善作用。利用中国工业企业数据库,统计分析不同行业的外商资本金构成情况,发现不同来源的FDI在行业间的分布情况存在差异。FDI的质量和行业分布差异,导致FDI对不同污染物产生不同的环境效应。论文为学者们关于FDI对中国环境影响的争论提供了一个合理的解释,也对中国的引资政策和环境治理具有一定的参考价值。     

With license to build: Chinese offshore wind firms rejecting European certificates

This paper examines the role of six European certification firms attempt to position themselves in China’s offshore wind industry. We find that European certification firms lack attention to local needs and struggle with differences in risk perceptions. Chinese companies, on their part, stress the importance of first-hand experience rather than foreign involvement in project development, making the efforts of European certification companies redundant. We conclude that the Chinese development strategy is in opposition to established European certification practices: from a Chinese perspective, the European approach looks like over-engineered project development, whilst in China, taking risks and gaining access to necessary experienced and ‘independent’ knowledge is seen as a precondition for developing the offshore wind industry.     

Effects of Chinese Imports on Relative Wages: Microevidence from Chile*

The increasing prominence of China in world trade raises important questions about the impact of this on importer countries. In this paper, we address the issue of how import competition from China has affected relative wages in the Chilean manufacturing industry. Using plant‐level data for the period 1996–2005, we find that increasing imports from China have depressed relative wages in sectors with higher Chinese‐import penetration. Our results show a significant reduction of relative wages, between 4 and 25 percent, for those sectors that have experienced the largest increases in Chinese imports. We also find that this effect is particularly strong for small firms, while large firms are unaffected.     

Corporate Investment and Tax Disincentive: Evidence from China

This study investigates how taxes influence corporate investment behavior. Based on a census of Chinese industrial enterprises, we utilize a tax-adjusted q model to examine the effects of taxes on corporate investment in fixed assets in China. Results show that the effective tax rate has a relatively small but significantly negative impact on Chinese firms’ investment in fixed assets. We extend the tax-adjusted q model to control for the lagged investment effect and peer effect of investment. Models with these effects do better at explaining the impact of taxes on firms’ investment. The lagged investment models present smaller but significant tax disincentive. Firms compete for investment with other firms both in the same region and in the same industry through peer effect. In addition, the tax disincentive differs among state owned enterprises, private enterprises, and other enterprises in China.     

Is technology acquisition enough to improve China's product quality? Evidence from firm-level panel data

As developing countries open themselves up to trade, many industrial firms in these countries are finding it difficult to compete internationally due to poor product quality and low product variety. Although China has been the largest producer of crude steel since 1996, China's steel firms have produced an overabundance of low-quality steel while domestic purchasers of steel have increasingly demanded higher quality steel products. Many have argued that for Chinese steel firms to improve product quality they must adopt more advanced technologies. Employing firm-level panel data of steel firms in China, we econometrically test the relative importance of two possible sets of factors affecting a firm's ability to utilize technology to improve product quality: technology acquisition factors and technology absorptive capacity factors. We find that technology complements such as in-house R&D and foreign knowledge must be combined with technology for Chinese firms to improve product quality.     

China’s competition and the export price strategies of developed countries

This paper analyzes the impact of Chinese competition on developed countries’ export prices. The empirical application is on Italy, one of the main European manufacturing exporters with exports at high risk of competition from China. Our results show that, following China’s entry into the WTO, the price strategies of Italian firms has been affected. While in general the increasing Chinese export competition resulted in an upgrading of products exported, the impact has been different according to the sector and technological level. The incentives to upgrade have been stronger for low technology sectors, where competition is tougher and varieties of products sold lower. To highlight quality differentials, and isolate the effects on the different segments of the distribution of Italy’s export prices, we run quantile regressions. We find that are mainly those products sold at low prices to face a strong pressure to upgrade.     

Interrelationship among foreign presence,domestic sales and export intensity in Chinese manufacturing industries

Using panel data on six Chinese manufacturing industries over the period 2005–2007, this article explores the interrelationship among foreign presence, domestic sales and export intensity of local firms. We find that the domestic sales and exports are complementary for local firms in China’s pharmaceutical industry, whereas in the case of the textile, transportation equipment, beverage, communication equipment and general equipment manufacturing industries, domestic sales and exports are substitutes. An increase in the average domestic sales increases foreign presence in all industries. The same applies to an increase in the average export intensity. An increase in the level of competition in China’s textile industry increases the export intensity as well as domestic sales of local textile firms. However, an increase in the level of competition in the pharmaceutical industry leads to a very large decrease in export intensity of local pharmaceutical firms. In the case of China’s transportation equipment manufacturing industry, an increase in the level of competition decreases domestic sales of local firms. Furthermore, an increase in the firm size increases domestic sales of Chinese firms in all six manufacturing industries.     

The impact of preferential trade agreements on the duration of antidumping protection

This paper examines the impact of preferential trade agreements on the duration of antidumping protection. We employ a two-step selection model where the first step accounts for the impact of membership in a preferential trade agreement on the original antidumping determination and the second step estimates the impact of membership in a preferential trade agreement on the duration of the measures. We find the duration of antidumping protection is about 17% shorter for preferential trade agreement members compared with targeted countries that are not preferential trade agreement members. The impact on duration depends largely on whether preferential trade agreements have rules related specifically to antidumping. Preferential trade agreements with rules are associated with a 28% reduction in the duration of protection, whereas the duration for preferential trade agreements without rules is not statistically different from the duration for non-preferential trade agreement countries. While the duration of antidumping measures against China is longer than for other countries, the impact of preferential trade agreement rules is robust to controlling for China.     

The Regional and Industrial Effects of FDI on Chinese Manufacturing Sector

This paper investigates the regional and industrial effects of FDI on Chinese manufacturing sector since China entered WTO. We find that FDI plays a different role in the development of different areas and industries through a comparison with state-controlled industrial enterprises in China. More establishments of smaller foreign funded enterprises and less foreign capital with a high level of management should promote the competition to stimulate manufacturing growth in eastern area, while fewer establishments of foreign funded enterprises with a large capital should make a great stimulus to the western manufacturing development. Both foreign capital and the establishment of foreign industrial enterprises have a great effect on the whole manufacturing sector by industry.     

产业政策、创新与制造企业服务化——基于“中国制造2025”准自然实验的经验研究

运用2000—2019年中国上市公司数据库,以2015年“中国制造2025”战略实施作为准自然实验,构建双重差分模型检验产业政策对制造企业服务化的影响及作用机制。结果发现,“中国制造2025”战略能够显著促进制造业服务化率提升。异质性分析表明,与国有企业和外资企业相比,民营企业所受的促进作用更显著;与西部地区企业相比,东部地区企业和中部地区企业所受的促进作用更显著。机制检验发现,产业政策能够通过提高全要素生产率和增加投资激励创新,进而促进制造企业服务化。同时,产业政策可能通过降低投资收益率抑制创新,进而阻碍制造企业服务化。上述结论不仅能够丰富相关文献,而且可以为产业政策有效性争论提供进一步的经验证据。     

Regional foreign banks and financial inclusion: Evidence from Africa

Regional foreign banks expanded quickly over the past decade in developing and emerging countries and have a growing influence in banking systems. We question whether the development of African regional foreign banks, also called Pan-African banks, influences financial inclusion of firms and households. To this end, we combine the World Bank Global Findex database and the World Bank Enterprise Surveys with a hand-collected database on the presence of regional foreign banks. We find that Pan-African banks presence increases firms’ access to credit and limited evidence that they favor financial access of the middle class by restoring confidence in banks. We suggest that this impact is related to the adoption of an aggressive strategy aiming at gaining market shares rather than through the exploitation of informational and technological advantages.     

反倾销措施的贸易救济效果评估

本文利用1997—2004年中国反倾销案例8位数税则号的涉案产品数据,考察了反倾销措施引起的指控对象国和非指控对象国的贸易模式的变化,在此基础上提出了反倾销行为贸易救济效果的证据。检验结果表明,中国反倾销措施对指控对象国的进口有明显的“贸易限制效应”;不仅征税案例,即使是无损害结案的反倾销指控仍然对指控对象国的进口贸易有重要影响,即反倾销具有“调查效应”;但是涉案产品可能在指控对象国和非指控对象国之间转移,这种“贸易转移效应”部分削弱了反倾销措施的保护效果;总体上看,反倾销仍然起到了救济本国产业的作用,因为无论是指控对象国还是非对象国的进口价格都会上升,从而控制了中国涉案产品的进口总量。     

CEO international experience and foreign IPOs

This paper examines listing location as a managerial decision by using a sample of IPOs of Chinese entrepreneurial firms in mainland China, the United States and Hong Kong. We find that Chinese entrepreneurial firms managed by CEOs with international experience are more likely to undertake foreign IPOs, especially those returned from countries with more advanced legal institutions and those operating in high-tech industries. The credibility crisis for Chinese firms in 2010 switched the focus of foreign IPOs from the US to Hong Kong. These results are consistent across returnee CFOs and other senior executives with international experience.     

FDI spillovers in new EU member states

Using an unbalanced panel of firm‐level data in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, we examine the impact of foreign firms on domestic firms’ productivity. In particular, we try to answer the following research questions: (1) Are there any spillover effects of foreign direct investments (FDI), and if so, are they positive or negative? (2) Are spillover effects more likely to occur within or across sectors? (3) Are the existence, the direction and the magnitude of spillovers conditioned by sector and firm‐specific characteristics? Our findings show that FDI spillovers exist both within and across sectors. The former arise when foreign firms operate in labour‐intensive sectors, while the latter occur when foreign firms operate in high‐tech sectors. Moreover, we find that domestic firm size conditions the exploitation of FDI spillovers even after controlling for absorptive capacity. We also detect a great deal of heterogeneity across countries consistent with the technology gap hypothesis.     

Foreign Acquisitions in China and Multinationals’ Global Market Strategy

Using firm‐level data from 2000 to 2006, we find that foreign acquisitions in China change the target firms’ export extensive margins. We develop a three‐country model with cross‐border acquisitions to show that the acquirers can alter the targets’ export decision through three possible channels: fixed‐cost jumping, technology transfer and global market reorganization. We find evidence that foreign acquisitions change the Chinese target firms’ probability of exporting to a third market. Technology transfer is not observed. Evidence implies that fixed‐cost jumping is used to enable the targets to export, while global market reorganization is a key motive for the acquirers to withdraw the targets from the export market.     

The role of institutions and immigrant networks in firms’ offshoring decisions

The offshoring of production by firms has expanded dramatically in recent decades, increasing their potential for economic growth. What determines the location of offshore production? How do countries’ policies and characteristics affect a firm's decision about where to offshore? Do firms choose specific countries because of the countries’ policies or because they know them better? In this paper, we use a rich dataset on Danish firms to analyze how decisions to offshore production depend on the institutional characteristics of the country and firm-specific bilateral networks. We find that institutions that reduce credit risk and corruption increase the probability that firms will offshore there, while those that increase regulation in the labour market decrease this probability. We also show that a firm's probability of offshoring increases with the share of its employees who are immigrants from that country of origin. Finally, our analysis reveals that the negative impact of institutions that hinder offshoring is attenuated by a strong bilateral network of foreign workers.     

Confucius Institute’s effects on international travel to China: do cultural difference or institutional quality matter?

This article uses a panel data of China’s inbound tourist flows from 2005 to 2015 to investigate Confucius Institute (CI)’s influence on China’s tourism. We find that CI, as a comprehensive platform for China’s foreign cultural exchange, has a significant positive effect on China’s tourist flows. The effects of CI on China’s inbound tourism are transmitted through bridging cultural gaps and promoting Chinese language, which reduces psychic distance and transaction costs. CI also stimulates China’s inbound tourist flows via reducing information asymmetry caused by different levels of institutional quality. Interestingly, we find that the heterogeneous effects of CI on China’s inbound tourism depend on institutional quality, and the effects of CI to boost China’s tourists are more prominent in departure countries with larger cultural difference.     

Chinese competition and product variety of Indian firms

Using detailed firm-product-year data across manufacturing industries in India, and exploiting the exogenous nature of China’s entry into the WTO in 2001, we investigate the link between the impact of import penetration from China on the product variety of Indian manufacturing firms. We find: (i) robust and significant effects of product drop, with the effect coming only from competitive pressure in the domestic market; (ii) robust evidence of product drop or ‘creative destruction’ only for firms belonging to the lower-half of the size distribution; (iii) firms drop their peripheral/marginal products and concentrate on the core ones; and (iv) the result is strongest for firms producing intermediate goods. For an average Indian manufacturing firm, a 10 percentage point increase in India’s Chinese share of imports in the domestic market reduces the product scope of firms by 1.7–4.4%. In contrast, we find positive effects on product scope when firms are importing intermediate goods. We also find evidence of significant productivity effects and within-firm factor reallocation. Our results are consistent to a battery of robustness checks and IV estimation.