为资本而赛跑?——城市马拉松赛事吸引FDI的实证研究

Running for Capital? An Empirical Study on the Impact of City Marathons on FDI

"稳外资"已经成为当前政府经济工作的一大重点,而积极有为的地方政府对于吸引FDI具有重要意义,但政府是否积极有为难以在短期内被外来投资者全面观察和准确识别到。为此,文章将举办马拉松赛事视为地方政府向外界传递"有为政府"形象的信号机制和竞争FDI的手段,并基于2009–2018年中国286个地级以上城市的面板数据,探索了城市马拉松赛事对于吸引FDI的影响。研究发现:(1)举办马拉松赛事显著促进了FDI的流入,平均而言,城市每举办一场全程马拉松赛事能够使FDI相应增加约16%;(2)举办马拉松赛事的"引资效应"在市场规模较大、政府财力较雄厚的举办城市更为明显。文章不但拓展了我们对于地方政府竞争策略以及FDI流入决定因素的理解,而且也启发城市政府应在市场发展和财力保障的基础上,积极建设成"有为政府",通过举办大型体育赛事以吸引外资流入,从而促进高质量的开放型经济发展。

For a long time,local governments have implemented varies of competition strategies,including tax incentives,land granting,and infrastructure construction,in order to attract foreign direct investment(FDI),which promoted the rapid growth of China’s economy.However,as China’s economic development enters the stage of"new normal",these traditional competitive strategies have been exhausted and the related traditional competitive advantages no longer exist.In this new context,various innovative competitive strategies are continuously emerging.Among them,the holding of full marathons is particularly eye-catching.We argue that the successful holding of this event demonstrates the strong resource coordination and comprehensive management capabilities of the host government,thus sending a positive signal of an"effective government"to the investors,which is conducive to attracting FDI.Based on the"government competition theory"and the"signaling theory",this paper constructs a theoretical framework to analyze the internal mechanism of city marathons affecting FDI inflows.We argue that under the institutional arrangement of"China’s style decentralization",the"effective government"with strong capability has the incentive to hold marathons in order to convey its positive image and gain an advantage in the competition for FDI.Based on the panel data of 286 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2009 to 2018,this paper empirically tests the relevant research hypotheses.We find that cities hosting marathon events can attract more FDI inflows,and this"attracting capital effect"is more obvious in those host cities with larger market sizes and richer governments.After correcting various measurement errors of marathon events,the"attracting capital effect"remains robust.Meanwhile,we do not find that the initial level of FDI in cities has predictive power for holding marathon events,thereby negating the possibility of"reverse causality"to a certain extent.Therefore,the combination of market size,government financial resources,and"effective government"serves as an important foundation for promoting cities’high-quality open development.This paper has significant implications both in theory and policy.It deepens the academic’s understanding of local government competition strategies,and also inspires city governments to actively build"effective governments"on the basis of market development and financial guarantees,and send positive signals to the outside world by holding large-scale sport events,thus promoting FDI inflows and high-quality open development.At the same time,this paper also enriches the relevant literature on the FDI determinants in developing countries and the economic effects of sport events.