IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/chinae/v31y2023i4p200-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Do Chinese Private Enterprises Seek Outward Foreign Direct Investment?

Author

Listed:
  • Kui Wang
  • Shuang Tao

Abstract

China is currently in a period of economic transformation and the reform of the factor market still lags behind that of the product market. This study explores the reasons causing China's private enterprise to expand abroad from the perspective of domestic factor market imperfection. Using data for Chinese listed firms between 2002 and 2020, it examines whether outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has been undertaken by private enterprises as a response to domestic factor market imperfection. It finds that private enterprises located in regions with greater factor market imperfection have had a greater tendency to engage in OFDI. This effect has been more pronounced among firms with high productivity or high innovation capability, and among medium and small private enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Kui Wang & Shuang Tao, 2023. "Why Do Chinese Private Enterprises Seek Outward Foreign Direct Investment?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 31(4), pages 200-218, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:31:y:2023:i:4:p:200-218
    DOI: 10.1111/cwe.12497
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12497
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/cwe.12497?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Conconi, Paola & Sapir, André & Zanardi, Maurizio, 2016. "The internationalization process of firms: From exports to FDI," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 16-30.
    2. Bao, Xiaohua & Deng, Jianpeng & Sun, Haoyu & Sun, Jin, 2022. "Trade policy uncertainty and foreign direct investment: Evidence from China’s WTO accession," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 707-720, October.
    4. Desbordes, Rodolphe & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2017. "The effects of financial development on foreign direct investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 153-168.
    5. Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2000. "Financial markets and the allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 187-214.
    6. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    7. Fei Nie & Jian Li & Xiaoli Etienne & Gucheng Li, 2023. "Impact of Outward Foreign Direct Investment on Chinese Manufacturing Firms' Financialization and Servitization," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 31(2), pages 112-136, March.
    8. Ding, Na & Gu, Leilei & Peng, Yuchao, 2022. "Fintech, financial constraints and innovation: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    9. Luo, Yadong & Xue, Qiuzhi & Han, Binjie, 2010. "How emerging market governments promote outward FDI: Experience from China," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 68-79, January.
    10. Robert C. Feenstra & Zhiyuan Li & Miaojie Yu, 2014. "Exports and Credit Constraints under Incomplete Information: Theory and Evidence from China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(4), pages 729-744, October.
    11. Bai, Xue & Krishna, Kala & Ma, Hong, 2017. "How you export matters: Export mode, learning and productivity in China," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 122-137.
    12. Yang, Mian & Yang, Fuxia & Sun, Chuanwang, 2018. "Factor market distortion correction, resource reallocation and potential productivity gains: An empirical study on China's heavy industry sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 270-279.
    13. Tian, Wei & Yu, Miaojie, 2020. "Distribution, outward FDI, and productivity heterogeneity: China and cross-countries’ evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Kalina Manova & Shang-Jin Wei & Zhiwei Zhang, 2015. "Firm Exports and Multinational Activity Under Credit Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 574-588, July.
    15. Chong-en Bai & Chang-Tai Hsieh & Zheng Song, 2020. "Special Deals with Chinese Characteristics," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 341-379.
    16. Yadong Luo & Rosalie L Tung, 2007. "International expansion of emerging market enterprises: A springboard perspective," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(4), pages 481-498, July.
    17. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    18. Ding, Haoyuan & Ni, Bei & Xue, Chang & Zhang, Xiaoyu, 2022. "Land holdings and outward foreign direct investment: Evidence from China," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    19. Stoian, Carmen & Mohr, Alex, 2016. "Outward foreign direct investment from emerging economies: escaping home country regulative voids," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1124-1135.
    20. Michael A Witt & Arie Y Lewin, 2007. "Outward foreign direct investment as escape response to home country institutional constraints," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(4), pages 579-594, July.
    21. Almeida, Heitor & Wolfenzon, Daniel, 2005. "The effect of external finance on the equilibrium allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 133-164, January.
    22. Max Boisot & Marshall W. Meyer, 2008. "Which Way through the Open Door? Reflections on the Internationalization of Chinese Firms," Management and Organization Review, The International Association for Chinese Management Research, vol. 4(3), pages 349-365, November.
    23. Boisot, Max & Meyer, Marshall W., 2008. "Which Way through the Open Door? Reflections on the Internationalization of Chinese Firms," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 349-365, November.
    24. Liu, Qing & Lu, Ruosi & Lu, Yi & Luong, Tuan Anh, 2021. "Import competition and firm innovation: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    25. Virgiliu Midrigan & Daniel Yi Xu, 2014. "Finance and Misallocation: Evidence from Plant-Level Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 422-458, February.
    26. Kong, Qunxi & Tong, Xin & Peng, Dan & Wong, Zoey & Chen, Huy, 2021. "How factor market distortions affect OFDI: An explanation based on investment propensity and productivity effects," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 459-472.
    27. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2009. "Firm heterogeneity and the structure of U.S. multinational activity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 206-215, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Du, He & Zhang, Chunguang, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and natural resources commodity prices: A comparative analysis of pre- and post-pandemic quantile trends in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Lingfu Kong & Emrah Sofuoğlu & Balogun Daud Ishola & Shujaat Abbas & Qingran Guo & Khurshid Khudoykulov, 2024. "Sustainable development through structural transformation: a pathway to economic, social, and environmental progress," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 1-34, April.
    3. Zhou, Yasong & Li, Yuqing & Chen, Chen, 2024. "The key role of digital governance, natural resource depletion, and industrialization in social well-being: A case study of China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Tian, Li & Wang, Qianyun, 2024. "Improving mineral mining enterprises environmental performance through corporate social responsibility practices in China: Implications for minerals policymaking," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Liping Qiu & Lihua Yang & Haiyan Zhou & Feng Hu, 2024. "Deconstruction of green product innovation drivers for regional export-oriented industrial enterprises in China: the product space perspective," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Zhao, Shuang & Zhang, Liqun & Peng, Lin & Zhou, Haiyan & Hu, Feng, 2024. "Enterprise pollution reduction through digital transformation? Evidence from Chinese manufacturing enterprises," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qiuping Chen & Bo Ning & Yue Pan & Jinli Xiao, 2022. "Green finance and outward foreign direct investment: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of green insurance in China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 899-924, September.
    2. Chen, Lili & Guo, Shaoyu & Lu, Jian & Gerschewski, Stephan, 2021. "Outward FDI and efficiency in within-firm resource allocation – Evidence from firm-level data of China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Weilei (Stone) Shi & Sunny Li Sun & Daying Yan & Zhu Zhu, 2017. "Institutional fragility and outward foreign direct investment from China," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(4), pages 452-476, May.
    4. Wang, Yichen & Hu, Jun & Chen, Jia, 2023. "Does Fintech facilitate cross-border M&As? Evidence from Chinese A-share listed firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Sun, Sunny Li & Peng, Mike W. & Lee, Ruby P. & Tan, Weiqiang, 2015. "Institutional open access at home and outward internationalization," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 234-246.
    6. Haoyuan Ding & Kees G. Koedijk & Chang Li & Tong Qi, 2021. "The internationalisation of Chinese firms: Impact of FDI experience on export performance," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(12), pages 3609-3640, December.
    7. Lu, Jiangyong & Liu, Xiaohui & Filatotchev, Igor & Wright, Mike, 2014. "The impact of domestic diversification and top management teams on the international diversification of Chinese firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 455-467.
    8. Fathallah, Ramzi & Branzei, Oana & Schaan, Jean-Louis, 2018. "No place like home? How EMNCs from hyper turbulent contexts internationalize by sequentially arbitraging rents, values, and scales abroad," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 620-631.
    9. Manova, Kalina & Yu, Zhihong, 2016. "How firms export: Processing vs. ordinary trade with financial frictions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 120-137.
    10. Simone Lenzu & Francesco Manaresi, 2019. "Sources and implications of resource misallocation: new evidence from firm-level marginal products and user costs," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 485, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    11. Hangtian Xu & Fuqiang Yang & Wenzhuo Zheng, 2024. "The effectiveness of government incentives for outward investment: The case of China's Belt and Road Initiative," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(3), pages 498-523, July.
    12. Ajai S Gaur & Xufei Ma & Zhujun Ding, 2018. "Home country supportiveness/unfavorableness and outward foreign direct investment from China," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(3), pages 324-345, April.
    13. Wei, Ziyi & Nguyen, Quyen T.K., 2017. "Subsidiary strategy of emerging market multinationals: A home country institutional perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1009-1021.
    14. Li, Fengchun & Wu, Siying, 2023. "Impacts of home country's institutional environment on OFDI dual margin," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 54-67.
    15. Anderson, John & Sutherland, Dylan & Hurst, Jamie, 2024. "Measuring Chinese MNE activity: The challenge of corporate inversions and capital in transit related FDI," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PA).
    16. Jones, Chris & Temouri, Yama & Kirollos, Karim & Du, Jun, 2023. "Tax havens and emerging market multinationals: The role of property rights protection and economic freedom," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PB).
    17. JaeBin Ahn & Alexander F. McQuoid, 2017. "Capacity Constrained Exporters: Identifying Increasing Marginal Cost," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1175-1191, July.
    18. Deng, Ping & Zhang, Shuo, 2018. "Institutional quality and internationalization of emerging market firms: Focusing on Chinese SMEs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 279-289.
    19. Chen, Donghua & Yu, Xin & Zhang, Zhou, 2019. "Foreign direct investment comovement and home country institutions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 220-231.
    20. Huiwen Su & Feiying Cai & Yunting Huang, 2022. "Institutional constraints and exporting of emerging‐market firms: The moderating role of innovation capabilities and digital transformation," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(7), pages 2641-2656, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:31:y:2023:i:4:p:200-218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwepacn.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.