Research On The Impact Of "The Belt And Road" National Infrastructure On China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment

The promotion of "the Belt and Road" Initiative has facilitated China's deepening of trade cooperation with countries along the route and achieving common development.Infrastructure plays a leading role in the construction and development of "the Belt and Road".With the opening and development of more countries,the economic and trade development of all countries is extremely uneven,and the shortage and difference of infrastructure interconnection have brought new challenges to the construction of "the Belt and Road".This paper takes 57 countries along the "Belt and Road" as the research object,and divides the infrastructure into four levels:transportation,energy,communication,education.Using the panel data from 2003 to 2016 to establish a multi-dimensional infrastructure indicator system.The entropy weight method is used to calculate the weight of main indicators,construct the comprehensive development index of infrastructure,compare and analyze the scores and ranking differences of countries in time and individual dimensions,and finally use the panel threshold regression model to empirically examine the impact of different dimensions of infrastructure on outward foreign direct investment.The main research contents are as follows:(1)According to the particularity of countries along "the Belt and Road",the theoretical model of infrastructure impact on outward foreign direct investment is constructed from both theoretical and realistic levels,and the threshold effect of infrastructure and foreign direct investment is discussed.(2)Depending on the availability and integrity of the data,establish a multi-dimensional infrastructure indicator system,use the entropy weight method to measure the weight of each index,and build a comprehensive infrastructure development index.The study found that the overall level of infrastructure in "the Belt and Road" countries is relatively backward,the differences between countries are large,the scope of fluctuations is obvious,and the gaps in transportation and communication infrastructure between countries are gradually widening,and the gap between energy and education infrastructure has not changed much.(3)Constructing a panel threshold regression model with independent foreign investment as the dependent variable,different dimensions of infrastructure development index,GDP,per capita GDP,political stability index,openness,and whether the BIT agreement is signed.The(4)study found that foreign direct investment is positively correlated with a country's GDP and negatively correlated with per capita GDP.China's investment in countries along"the Belt and Road" is based on the size of a country's market rather than the use of labor factors.The smaller the national contradiction of a country,the lighter the civil war,and the more perfect the legal system,the more China directly invests in it,but the openness of a country and the BIT agreement between the two sides are not significant.There is a significant single threshold effect in transportation,communication,energy,education infrastructure and foreign direct investment,in which the transportation and education infrastructure has a marginal diminishing effect,the communication infrastructure has a marginal incremental effect,and energy infrastructure is not significant when it is below the threshold,but is significantly positive when it is above the threshold.China should give full consideration to the development of infrastructure in a country and prioritize investment in countries with good transportation,energy and communication infrastructure,but also consider threshold effect and the marginal diminishing effect to avoid blind investment.