Political risk and firm exit: evidence from the US–China Trade War

When do political risks lead to divestment from a profitable market? Existing theories argue both that foreign investors may be sensitive to political tensions, but that they may only be sensitive to violent conflict. Using the crucial case of the US–China Trade War, we outline how political risks increased rates of exit among foreign firms while firm entrenchment mitigated these risks. Using a new dataset on all foreign-invested enterprises registered in China between 2017 and 2019, we implement triple interaction models to isolate the impact of increased political risks, investor national origin, and entrenchment on firm exit. Our findings show that heightened political risks during the trade war did increase firm exits by 34% – 3% points over the pre-conflict baseline. Tariffs, the targeted effect of the trade war, increase US firm exits by 1% point. Firm exit is determined by the balance of heightened political risks against the availability of firm-level resources to mitigate these risks. These findings reconcile the conflicting expectations of the ‘business as usual’ and ‘follow the flag’ literatures about how firms respond to political risk, highlighting the tremendous collateral damage tariffs can cause in an age of global value chains.