Does the Belt and Road Initiative facilitate China’s corporate overseas investment: Based on a sustainable development perspective

Corporate overseas investment is a pivotal element of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As an all-round opening-up strategy, the BRI has brought new ideas to international cooperation, and Chinese enterprises should seize this opportunity to promote global sustainable development. Adopting the data of Chinese listed enterprises from 2011-2020, this paper investigates the impact of the BRI on corporate overseas investment (COI) and its mechanisms via exploiting the difference-in-differences model (DID). Results show that the BRI has significantly facilitated the COI along the routes. We observe that the findings still hold after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis verifies that tax incentives and credit environment improvement are the main channels by which BRI enhances COI. Heterogeneity results reveal that this initiative is more prominent for small and medium-sized enterprises and enterprises in dominant industries. The extensive analysis suggests that from a sustainable development perspective, the BRI facilitates more overseas investment of enterprises in polluting or high energy-consuming industries; the COI is more affected by BRI in regions with more stringent environmental regulations. This study provides empirical evidence for BRI construction and regional development.