东道国大选对吸引国际直接投资的影响——基于政治经济周期视角

Host Country’s General Election Impact on Its Inward Foreign Direct Investment——Based on the Perspective of Political Business Cycle

基于政治经济周期理论,本文通过构建吸引国际直接投资的政治经济周期模型发现:东道国现任领导人会在临近大选换届时努力推动吸引国际直接投资流入,以促进劳动就业增加和经济增长,并最终达到胜选连任的目标,由此在临近大选换届时东道国的国际直接投资流入会显著增加。基于上述理论模型,本文实证检验发现:相较于非大选年,东道国在大选年的国际直接投资流入显著增加,其中以绿地投资形式进入的国际直接投资增长尤其显著。对东道国的政治体制进行分类后发现:相较于总统制东道国,议会制东道国的大选对国际直接投资流入的影响更为显著。本研究不仅提供了基于政治经济周期理论来研究国际资本流动的新视角,还为跨国企业特别是中国企业选择对外直接投资的最佳时机和最佳区位提供了基于政治经济周期理论的决策依据。

Based on political business cycle( PBC) theory,this paper constructed a PBC model with inward foreign direct investment( IFDI). It finds that,the incumbent of the host country will endeavor to push forward with attraction of IFDI near the general election,so as to promote domestic employment and economic growth for re-election target.Hence,the inflow of IFDI will significantly increase when the general election of host country approaches. According to the theoretical model mentioned above,this paper empirically reveals that, compared to non-election years, the IFDI of host country significantly increases in the general election year,especially for greenfield investment.Moreover,after the classification of political institutions,we find that,the general election of the parliamentary countries has more impacts on the inflow of IFDI than that in presidential countries. This paper not only offers new perspective on foreign capital inflow,but also propound on the optimal timing and location of China’s OFDI based on the PBC theory.