The Impact Of China’s Foreign Investment Liberalization On The Use Of Industrial Robots In China

Since the reform and opening up in 1978,China has carried out market-oriented reforms in its economy,while gradually adjusting its open-door policy,which has allowed China to increase the total amount of foreign investment absorbed year by year,accelerating the development of China’s economy and laying the foundation for China’s economic take-off after joining the WTO.China has also been adjusting the Guidance Catalogue for Foreign Investment Industries in recent years to further actively utilize foreign investment,create a good business environment and establish a good open economic system.On the other hand,the use of industrial robots by companies has become a key feature to measure the modernization of a country’s manufacturing industry.China has become the world’s largest and fastest growing industrial robot market,and the use of industrial robots in China will be more widespread in the future.As the level of foreign investment liberalization continues to increase,it is valuable to study the impact of foreign investment liberalization on the use of industrial robots in China.This thesis firstly explains the possible ways in which foreign investment liberalization affects the use of industrial robots in China by combining the externalization theory of foreign direct investment and the technology gap theory,and propose two channels of influence: the "competition effect" and the "learning effect" brought by foreign investment liberalization.Second,after describing the measures of foreign capital deregulation and industrial robot use and the characteristic facts related to foreign capital liberalization and industrial robot use in China,an empirical study is conducted using the double difference method by combining data from the China Industrial Enterprise Database and the China Customs Trade Database from 2000 to 2013.Based on the baseline regression results,the validity and robustness of the double-difference model are tested.The two channels of "competition effect" and "learning effect" are also tested in combination with theoretical basis and mechanism analysis.Then,the heterogeneity analysis is conducted based on the differences in ownership and industry differences.Finally,based on the theoretical analysis and empirical regression results,this thesis proposes corresponding countermeasures and research outlook.The innovation of this thesis is to portray the impact of foreign capital liberalization on micro-firm behavior and to explore the macroeconomic factors that influence the use of industrial robots in Chinese manufacturing firms.The empirical results show that(1)foreign capital liberalization will promote the use of industrial robots in China,and the results remain robust after a series of validity tests such as parallel trend test,expected effect test,placebo test and controlling for the timelinear trend of the industry,excluding the interference of other policy shocks during the sample period,replacing the clustering standard error level and substituting the amount of robot imports;(2)foreign capital liberalization foreign capital liberalization promotes the use of industrial robots in China through two channels: the "competition effect" and the "learning effect" brought by foreign capital entry;(3)this promotion effect varies with firm ownership,industry labor intensity,and industry technology level.In general,foreign capital liberalization has a more significant effect on the use of industrial robots by foreign enterprises,enterprises in non-labor-intensive industries,and enterprises in hightech industries.