Research On The Spatial Spillover Effect Of China’s OFDI On The Technological Progress Of The Host Country

In 2013,President Xi Jinping proposed a major initiative to jointly build the“Belt and Road” during his visit to Central Asia and Southeast Asian countries.In recent years,China has made new achievements in strengthening the integration of infrastructure connectivity,top-level interaction,trade connectivity and financial integration among countries along the route.China’s continuous expansion of foreign direct investment has become an important supporting part of the “Belt and Road”construction,and at the same time has spawned many related topics.Previous studies have shown that OFDI promotes the economic and technological progress and industrial structure upgrading of the host country.In the context of economic globalization,the economic correlation between regions affects the spatial dissemination of factors and the spatial diffusion of technologies.Therefore,when exploring the technological spillovers of China’s OFDI in countries along the “Belt and Road”,we should also pay attention to whether there is a spatial correlation of such technological spillovers.The purpose of this study is to clarify the following questions: whether there is space technology spillover from China’s OFDI to countries along the “Belt and Road”;if so,is the technology space spillover an improvement in technical efficiency or an absolute shift in the production frontier;China is committed to the integration construction along the route.Under the background,the economic interaction of countries along the route has become more active,and whether the economic openness of the host country has an impact on the technological space spillover.Under the theoretical support of foreign direct investment theory,neoclassical economic theory,new trade theory and new economic geography,this paper uses the spatial panel data of 57 countries along the“Belt and Road”from 2004 to 2019 to construct geographic proximity matrix,inverse distance weight matrix and human capital weight matrix respectively.First,measure the spatial correlation of technical indicators of countries along the route,and Then,based on the spatial Durbin model(SDM),we empirically test the spatial spillover effect of China’s OFDI on the technological progress of countries along the “Belt and Road”.The research results show that:(1)China’s OFDI has significantly promoted the technological progress of countries along the Belt and Road in two ways: direct spillover and spatial spillover.From the effect decomposition results,the spatial effect size is significantly larger than the direct effect size due to the inclusion of all sample countries except the host country.(2)Further analysis of the structure of technical indicators shows that the technical space spillover of China’s OFDI is mainly the improvement of technical efficiency,rather than the progress of technological frontier.(3)There is heterogeneity in the spatial spillover effect of China’s OFDI on countries along the “Belt and Road”.It has significant technological spatial spillover effects on countries along the route with high capital account and trade openness,but not on sample countries with low openness salience.The research conclusions of this paper provide evidence for win-win economic cooperation between China and the countries along the “Belt and Road”.China’s direct investment in the countries along the “Belt and Road” not only promotes the improvement of the technological efficiency of the host countries,but also helps to promote the interconnection and integration of countries along the “Belt and Road”.