The Influence Of Host Country’s Political Risk On Multinational Enterprises’ Outward Foreign Direct Investment Performance: ——Evidence From A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based On The Belt And Road Initiative

As an open international cooperation mechanism,the "Belt and Road Initiative" has promoted countries and regions along the route as a new hot investment growth points.The countries along the "Belt and Road" have huge market potential and abundant natural resources,and are the most potential destination for Outward Foreign Direct Investment（OFDI）.At the same time,most of the countries along the line are in a period of social and economic structural transformation,and the overall economic foundation is weak;the political,economic,cultural,ethnic,and social differences between countries are very obvious.Some countries have geopolitical complexities and frequent regime or government behavior and policies changes;investment income is difficult to guarantee.The "One Belt,One Road" initiative will play a positive role in driving Chinese enterprises to invest in countries along the "Belt and Road" by jointly building an open,inclusive,balanced and inclusive regional economic cooperation framework.However,the existing research has not drawn a consistent conclusion on the performance of multinational corporations（MNCs）in high-risk countries,and the actual operation of OFDI in Chinese countries along the Belt and Road route cannot be simply predicted;the impact of the cooperation mechanism advocated by the "Belt and Road Initiative" on MNCs response to political risks is still unclear.Based on the transaction cost theory,this paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework of "political risk--transaction cost—OFDI performance",and discusses the mechanism and influence path of political risk affecting OFDI performance of MNCs.Based on the legitimacy theory,this paper analyzes the adjustment effect of the friendly bilateral relationship advocated by the "Belt and Road Initiative" on the relationship between political risk and OFDI performance of MNCs.Based on the data of OFDI of A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2015,this paper empirically tests the impact of political risk in host countries on OFDI performance of Chinese enterprises.On the basis of this,we make use of the change of exogenous policies brought about by "one belt and one road" initiative.By constructing the enterprises that invest in the countries along the "one belt and one road" as the processing group and the enterprises that invest in the other countries as the control group,we use difference-in-difference（DID）method to identify the cause-effect between "one belt one way" initiative cooperation mechanism and the impact of host country’s political risk on OFDI performance of Chinese MNCs.The results of this paper show that there is a significant negative correlation between political risk and OFDI performance of MNCs.At the same time,for Chinese companies investing in countries along the "Belt and Road",the negative impact of host country political risk on the performance of overseas business operations can be weakened by the legitimacy brought about by the "Belt and Road" initiative.That is,legitimacy plays a bridge between multinational companies’ response to risk environment and improved investment performance.The research results of this paper provide management inspiration for MNCs to identify,analyze and respond to overseas investment risks and improve OFDI performance.At the same time,it provides some policy enlightenment for understanding the real effect of "One Belt And One Road" initiative cooperation mechanism on micro enterprise performance and its subsequent reform.