中国企业对“一带一路”沿线的投资效应评估

Assessment of Chinese Enterprises’Investment Effect Along the Belt and Road

共建“一带一路”倡议有着极为深远的国际、国内意义。本文结合中国全球投资跟踪数据库的2005-2019年中国企业3612笔对外投资项目数据,运用三重差分模型实证检验中国企业对“一带一路”沿线经济体的投资效应。分析结果显示:共建“一带一路”倡议显著促进了中国企业在沿线经济体的投资金额和次数,无论“问题”投资的次数还是“问题”投资次数的比重均不显著。由此得出结论:在共建“一带一路”倡议推进中,中国企业的投资促进了沿线经济体的发展而非增加债务风险。经系列稳健性检验和识别策略检验,该结论仍然成立。本文的拓展性讨论依然支持基准检验的结论,同时发现对“一带”沿线所带来的发展效应要高于对“一路”沿线的该效应,并且主要通过集约边际而非广延边际来产生。最后,本文从实现软实力输出、构建多渠道协同资金供给机制、从源头上减少“问题”投资三方面提出政策建议。

The Belt and Road Initiative represents a new pattern of high-standard all-round opening-up in China,a key practical platform for promoting the development of a human community with a shared future,and an important vehicle for improving the global development model and governance system.The Belt and Road Initiative has far-reaching domestic and international significance and makes remarkable progress.However,there are still baseless allegations denigrating it as a“debt trap”.To confute the allegation,this paper empirically examines Chinese enterprises’investment in the Belt and Road Initiative projects.Based on a difference-in-differences-indifferences(DDD)model,this paper uses the specific project data from 3,612 investment or contracting projects in 154 economies with an outward investment exceeding USD 100 million from 2005 to 2019,as recorded in the China Global Investment Tracker.The empirical test reveals that Chinese enterprises’investment along the Belt and Road is a recipe for a pie of global development,and the joint building of the Belt and Road significantly increases the investment amount and frequency of Chinese enterprises in economies along the routes.However,there is no significant increase in the number or the proportion of problematic investments,which empirically refutes the so-called“debt trap”claim.Furthermore,the infrastructure construction projects implemented through the joint efforts of the Belt and Road Initiative bring substantial benefits to the economies along the routes.The rigorous causal identification also proves that the Belt and Road Initiative,as an important platform for China to participate in the supply of international public goods,is a recipe for a pie of development rather than a“debt trap”.The conclusions drawn by the benchmark regression test still hold after robustness tests excluding years,industries,economies,and other policy effects,and identification strategy tests such as parallel trends and instrumental variable methods.The extended discussion in this paper still supports the results of the benchmark regression test and shows that the development pie effect is more significant for the Silk Road Economic Belt than for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.Furthermore,the effect is mainly generated by the intensive margin rather than the extensive margin.Therefore,to create a favorable public opinion environment for the Belt and Road Initiative,China should continue to promote the export of soft power,build a multi-channel collaborative fund supply mechanism,and reduce problematic investments from the source.