惠人及己:对外援助与企业“走出去”

Helping Others Is Helping Ourselves:Foreign Aid and Enterprises Going-out

发展援助为国际发展合作提供了融资,新兴经济体在参与国际发展合作的过程中提供了援助与贸易、投资相结合的新模式。本文基于中国对外援助和企业“走出去”的客观事实考察了这种模式的有效性。基准回归发现,中国的对外援助推动了总出口的增加,对总投资没有显著影响,进一步考察出口和投资的结构,发现中间品出口和能源矿产投资受援助资金的影响较大。异质性分析的结果表明,不同类型援助资金对出口和投资的影响存在差异,官方发展援助对出口产生积极影响,而其他援助资金更有利于对外投资,并且,援助资金的影响在那些与中国发展合作联系密切的国家中更为显著。机制检验部分发现,对外援助能够通过改善国家形象为出口和投资创造良好的外部环境,进而推动企业“走出去”。本文的研究结论表明我国的对外援助有益于受援国福利改善,也给我国带来了经济收益和回报,这些发现为中国继续参与国际发展合作提供了理论和实证支撑。

Development aid provides financing for international development cooperation.In the process of participating in global development cooperation,emerging economies provide a new model that combines aid with trade and investment.This article examines the effectiveness of this model based on the objective reality of Chinese foreign aid and enterprises going-out.The benchmark regression finds that foreign aid has promoted the increase of total exports,but has no significant impact on total investment.Further investigation on the structure of export and investment shows that intermediate product exports and investment in energy and mineral resources are greatly affected by the aid funds.The results of heterogeneity analyses show that the different types of aid funds have different impacts on export and investment.Official development aid has a positive impact on exports,while other aid funds are more conducive to foreign investment.Moreover,the impact of aid funding is more obvious in countries with close ties to China’s development cooperation.The mechanism test shows that foreign aid has created a good external environment for the export and investment of enterprises by improving the image of the country and promoting enterprises to “go out”.The research conclusions of this paper show that Chinese foreign aid is beneficial to the welfare improvement of recipient countries,and it also brings economic benefits and returns to our country.These findings provide theoretical and empirical support for China’s continued participation in international development cooperation.