IMPACTS OF THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE ON PEER EFFECTS IN CHINESE FIRMS’ OFDI
Keywords:
The BRI, Outward investment, Peer effectsAbstract
Based on the perspective of peer effects, this paper takes China's A-share listed companies as research samples to explore the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on peer effects in corporate outward investment. The empirical results show that: (1) The BRI can significantly narrow the gap in outward investment between individual firms and their industry peers as well as provincial peers, indicating that both industry peer effects and geographic peer effects prevail in the outward investment activities of Chinese enterprises. (2) For state-owned enterprises and firms located in the 18 provinces along the BRI routes, the Initiative substantially reduces their outward investment gaps relative to peer enterprises, while such effect is not statistically significant for non-state-owned enterprises and firms outside these provinces. (3) Government subsidies strengthen the BRI’s influence on industry peer effects of corporate outward investment in China. Similarly, the degree of marketization across provinces enhances the BRI’s impact on peer effects in outward investment among intra-provincial enterprises.References
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