The Impact Of OFDI Of Countries Along The Belt And Road On The Export Technology Level Of Home Countries

As the cooperation among countries along the Belt and Road continues to deepen and the pace of opening up continues to accelerate,one of the important strategies is foreign direct investment(OFDI).Through OFDI,the investing country learns and imitates the advanced technology of the host country.Through the reverse technology spillover effect of OFDI,it drives the domestic technological innovation and thus promotes the industrial structure upgrading of the home country.Advanced technological achievements flow and share in the home country and are applied in the export sector to improve the productivity and product technology content of the export sector,so as to comprehensively promote the export technology level of the home country.In this context,China is in the process of a new round of higher-level openingup.As an important way of opening-up,OFDI has been highly valued.In order to improve China’s export technology level and gain the maximum advantage in opening to the outside world,it is necessary to study how OFDI affects the export technology level of the home country.First of all,this paper reviews relevant domestic and foreign literature,summarizes the definition and measurement standards of export technology level at home and abroad,and the economic effect OFDI brings to the home country,laying a foundation for the following research and analysis.Secondly,combined with the actual development of countries along the “Belt and Road”,this paper carries out a practical analysis on the current situation of OFDI and export technology level of each country,which provides a realistic research background for theoretical mechanism deduction and empirical analysis in the following.Then,in terms of theoretical mechanism derivation,this paper draws a conclusion based on Hausmann’s research: the technological level of a country is positively correlated with foreign direct investment,and the larger the foreign direct investment is,the stronger the technological level of the country is.At the same time,OFDI influences the technology level of the home country through four theoretical mechanisms,which are: R&D cost sharing mechanism,R&D achievement feedback mechanism,reverse technology transfer mechanism,and peripheral R&D stripping mechanism.Next,in terms of empirical analysis,this paper adopts the statistical data of 56 countries along the belt and Road from 2005 to 2019 as data samples,and summarizes the impact of OFDI on the export technology level of the home country through theoretical mechanism deduction and empirical analysis.In this paper,the complexity of export technology is taken as the index to measure the export technology level of the home country.By constructing unbalanced panel data,this paper empirically analyzes the relationship between OFDI and the export technology level of the home country using a two-way fixed effect model.On the basis of full-sample regression analysis,considering that countries at different levels of development and regions will have an impact on a country’s export technology level,this paper carries out a sub-sample heterogeneity regression analysis on countries along the “Belt and Road”.The results show that there is a significant correlation between the stock size of OFDI and the export technology level of the home country.When a country’s outward direct investment increases by 1 per cent,its export technology level rises by 1.5 per cent.On the national dimension,OFDI has a more significant effect on the export technology level of developing countries and has greater economic utility.When a developing country’s outward direct investment increases by 1%,the country’s export technology level rises by 1.3%.From the regional dimension,OFDI has the most prominent influence on the export technology level of East Asia.When OFDI increases by 1%,the export technology level of East Asia will increase by 6.38%.Finally,through the above theoretical deduction and empirical analysis,this paper draws a conclusion about the relationship between OFDI and the export technology level of the home country,and puts forward relevant suggestions to improve the export technology level of China.