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In the current complex global economic background, international capital flows are becoming more frequent. Based on this, this paper takes international portfolio investment as the research object and empirically tests the causal relationship and control channel between international portfolio flows and macrofinancial risk in emerging economies. It selects the panel data of emerging economies from 2001 to 2020, constructs macrofinancial risk indicators by using contingent claim analysis and the entropy-based TOPSIS method, tests the effect of international portfolio flows on macrofinancial risk by using the panel distributed lag regression model, and explores the management effect of foreign exchange reserves and capital controls on the risk effect by using the panel threshold regression model. The results show that long-term international portfolio flows help reduce macrofinancial risk, but short-term capital flows appear to increase macrofinancial risk. In addition, both foreign exchange reserves and capital controls effectively reduce the risk effect of portfolio flows. However, when considering different types of portfolios, we find that foreign exchange reserves do not effectively control the risk effect of equity securities flows, while stricter capital controls do. This paper argues that emerging economies should be more open to international long-term portfolio flows, focus on the monitoring of short-term portfolio capital flows and equity securities flows, and coordinate the use of foreign exchange reserves and capital control instruments to manage the risk effects of portfolio flows. This paper verifies the risk effect of international portfolio investment flows through empirical analysis, tests the effectiveness of foreign exchange reserves and capital controls, and provides a decision-making reference for emerging economies to timely identify, effectively manage, and prevent the risk effect of international capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence mechanism of the marketization process and financial technology on corporate investment preference using panel data from 2013 to 2019 for China's A-share listed companies. The study finds that both the marketization process and FinTech can facilitate increased R&D innovation and foreign equity investment by companies but discourage investment in their fixed assets, and FinTech has a "U-shaped effect" on corporate R&D and innovation. At the same time, the marketization process and FinTech show different threshold effects on corporate investment preferences with government subsidies as the threshold variable. It is found that market-based processes in small-scale enterprises are better able to promote investment in innovative R&D by companies—the marketization process for large enterprises has a greater impact on outward equity investment in the heterogeneity analysis. From the perspective of the nature of property rights, it is found that the marketization process and FinTech have a greater impact on non-state enterprises. As a result, in an era of rapid FinTech development, this paper enriches the relevant research on the impact of the marketization process on corporate investment preferences, which has important practical significance for policy formulation and corporate future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2003 to 2019 to study the impact of venture capital holdings on the dividend policy of listed companies. The research findings show that venture capital holdings increase the willingness to pay cash dividends and the payment level. This conclusion still stands after using the PSM matching method and other robustness methods, indicating that there is causality between venture capital holdings and the dividend policy of listed companies. Further research finds that the course of action for venture capital holdings to increase the willingness of listed companies to pay cash dividends and their dividend payment level is to increase the dividend payout ratio by alleviating the company's agency level. Further research finds that different types of venture capital will also have an impact on the dividend policy. Foreign investment venture capital organizations are more favorable for increasing the willingness of listed companies to pay cash dividends and their dividend payment level. In addition, the impact of venture capital holdings on the dividend policy is more obvious in the central and western regions where economic development is relatively backward and is less obvious in the eastern regions. Based on J2EE, a venture capital information management platform is designed and developed. The research of this paper shows that venture capital shareholding plays an important role in promoting dividend payment of listed companies, and has enriched the research results of the value-added role of venture capital. At the same time, from the perspective of dividend policy, it has brought to light the corporate governance effectiveness of venture capital and has provided certain theoretical evidence for the assertion that capital can better serve the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant corridor under the "Belt and Road Initiative" is announced by the government of China for numerous transport and energy projects. China focuses greatly on the sustainability of these projects, in accordance with Green Investment Principles. For this, environmental, social, governance, and technological considerations are taken into account. This paper offers a novel assessment of the impact of green sustainability under BRI and the current emission scenario in Pakistan. The question that needs to be addressed here is whether the projects under Belt and Road Initiative are as environment friendly as they claim. In the first phase of this study, we review theories establishing evidence based on existing literature to determine the influence of Belt and Road on economic development. In the next phase, we use Environment Kuznets Curve and apply estimates from Johansson's Cointegration Test to quantify the present environmental scenario of Pakistan and probable environmental risk portrayed by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This paper helps in determining the relationship between carbon emission and three major variables including energy consumption, economic growth, and foreign direct investment (FDI). Cointegration analysis is applied on time series data comprising of a 40 years' period from 1979 to 2019. The paper finds that (i) the belt and road corridors could substantially improve trade, foreign investment, and living conditions for citizens in participating countries; (ii) moreover, this study confirms the presence of one cointegrated equation suggesting the presence of a long term relationship between the CO2 and independent variables and a short run association running from EnC to CO2. The study also proposes a Green BRI Model which formulates a body that devises environmental performance standards, reviews procedures, and ensures that they get implemented on all CPEC projects. The Belt and Road Initiative increases emissions among participating countries. China and corridor economies need to adopt strict policy reforms that increase transparency, expand trade, improve debt sustainability, and mitigate environmental, social, and corruption risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the cross-sectional data of 40 large-scale international airports in China in 2019, this paper introduced natural and social factors into the calculation of airport operating efficiency and constructed a BCC-SFA-BCC-Tobit 4-stage analysis framework. Combining with the connotation of the "green, smart, humane, and safe" airport high-quality development, the paper applied the Tobit model to quantitatively analyze the influencing factors of the operating efficiency of airports, and the research shows that (1) the overall operating efficiency of the study airports is 0.734; in terms of the region, the operating efficiency of airports located in southwest and northwest regions is greatly affected by natural factors, while the operating efficiency of airports located in North China is mostly affected by social factors. (2) Under the perspective of human-earth relationship, the impact of natural factors on the operating efficiency of airports is greater than that of social factors, wherein PM2.5 and relative humidity have negative impact, while the actual foreign capital utilization of the city and domestic and foreign tourists have positive impact. (3) The regression results of the Tobit model indicate that green, smart, and safe indicators can promote the high-quality development of airports, while the humane indicator restrains the high-quality development of airports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a large developing country, China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) and its relationship to trade have always been subjects of extensive scrutiny in academic circles. With the continuous advancement of the "Belt and Road" initiative (BRI), the pace of overseas expansion by Chinese firms has accelerated. This paper theoretically constructs a firm heterogeneity model of China's OFDI and bilateral trade, and conducts research based on panel data of China's OFDI in countries along the BRI from 2003 to 2019. The results show that China's OFDI can substantially enhance the potential for bilateral trade, and this conclusion remains robust after overcoming endogeneity and economic fluctuations. In a heterogeneity test, China's OFDI in countries along the "Land Silk Road" is shown to have a greater effect on trade potential than in countries along the "Maritime Silk Road." In the controlled test, China's OFDI to BRI countries has a greater role in upgrading trade potential than investment in other trading powerhouses. China's OFDI can promote the economic development of host countries along the BRI by strengthening the potential for bilateral trade. The results of this study are not only conducive to the "going global" of Chinese enterprises but also of practical significance for host countries to achieve high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growth of Chinese economy and the improvement of its international status, Chinese enterprises foreign direct investment has ushered in new development opportunities. Although scale foreign investment continues to expand and has broad development prospects, it also faces huge risks that domestic investment has never had. China and Central Asia are highly complementary economically. Strengthening direct investment in the Central Asian countries can effectually drive China's economic development. Based on the quantitative evaluation and analysis from the perspective of big data, this paper uses a variety of methods to evaluate and explore the risks of China's direct investment in Central Asian countries, and gives some policy suggestions. The research shows that the motivation of Chinese foreign investment cooperation is different from the marginal industry transfer in the traditional international investment theory. The problem of country risks in Central Asia is prominent. Chinese government must rely on the build of the Belt and Road to strengthen intergovernmental communication and exchanges, and establish a good cooperation mechanism to deal with the increasingly prominent problem of country risks. Further we will improve trade facilitation and expand the trade openness of Central Asian countries to China. To avoid risks, Chinese companies should invest under the guidance of the government and establish a complete investment chain for large projects. At the same time, we also need to seize the opportunity of the development of digital economy, and gradually establish a scientific and efficient investment model to effectively avoid the risk of direct investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of global economic integration, traditional trade barriers have been greatly reduced, and the marginal utility of tariff reductions on trade expansion has become weaker and weaker. Especially under the global value chain division of labor system, intermediate products and parts have undergone multiple cross-border trades. The cumbersome trade procedures will greatly increase trade costs and destroy the driving force of trade. After improving infrastructure and optimizing customs clearance procedures, with the improvement of convenience, more countries and enterprises can participate in the global division of labor. Considering the industry characteristics of high-tech manufacturing, this paper selects panel data of high-tech manufacturing from multiple sample countries and uses the panel data two-way fixed-effect model to empirically analyze the impact of a country's trade facilitation level on the global value chain of high-tech manufacturing in a country. From the perspective of global value chain status, the improvement of a country's level of trade facilitation can significantly promote the country's high-tech manufacturing global value chain status. The level of foreign direct investment, the degree of opening to the outside world, the level of government public services, the level of human capital, and the R&D capability are all significantly positive at the 1% level, while the level of physical capital is significantly negative at the 1% level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theoretically analyzes the direct impact of environmental regulation on carbon emissions and its indirect effects on carbon emissions through foreign direct investment (FDI), energy consumption, industrial structure, and technological innovation. Then, this paper constructs a spatial lag model to empirically test the dual effects of environmental regulation on carbon emissions based on the provincial panel data of 2003–2017 in China. The results show that the average Moran's I value of carbon emissions during 2003–2017 is 0.2506, passing the significance test at 1% level, and carbon emissions have spatial correlation characteristics. The direct impact of environmental regulation on carbon emissions is significant and positive. Environmental regulation could indirectly influence carbon emissions by influencing FDI, energy consumption, and technological innovation, and meanwhile, FDI, energy consumption, and technological innovation help to reduce carbon emissions under the constraint of environmental regulation, specifically. However, the impact of environmental regulation on carbon emissions through industrial structure is not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the decline of China's economic growth rate and the uproar of antiglobalization, the textile industry, one of the business cards of China's globalization, is facing a huge impact. When the economic model is undergoing transformation, it is more important to prevent enterprises from falling into financial distress. So, the financial risk early warning is one of the important means to prevent enterprises from falling into financial distress. Aiming at the risk analysis of the textile industry's foreign investment, this paper proposes an analysis method based on deep learning. This method combines residual network (ResNet) and long short-term memory (LSTM) risk prediction model. This method first establishes a risk indicator system for the textile industry and then uses ResNet to complete deep feature extraction, which are further used for LSTM training and testing. The performance of the proposed method is tested based on part of the measured data, and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that pathwise outward foreign direct investment can promote the long-term economic growth of developed economies and some developing countries with sufficient technology, human capital, and financial efficiency. However, the contribution of inverse outward foreign direct investment from developing countries, especially China, on the economic growth of developed economies has not yet been demonstrated. Based on the endogenous growth theory, this article uses panel data of China's inverse outward foreign direct investment and economic growth indicators of 26 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries from 2003 to 2017 to empirically study the contribution of China's inverse outward foreign direct investment to the economic growth of developed economies and its mechanism, and furthermore to study the mediation effect of research and development capital and technological advances in the contribution. The empirical results show that China's inverse outward foreign direct investment has a significant contribution to the economic growth of developed host countries, with a contribution rate of 3.01%. The contribution rate of the mediating effect is 24.3% when only considering technological advances and 54.34% when considering the multiple mediators of research and development capital and technological advances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of FDI (foreign direct investment) on the innovation of Chinese local enterprises have always been the focus of attention, but few studies have explored the impacts of foreign shareholding on enterprise innovation behaviors through the micro level. Based on the survey data regarding the manufacturing sector of China enterprises conducted by the World Bank in 2012, this paper conducts an empirical study on the relationship between foreign shareholding and enterprise innovation behaviors. The research findings include two aspects; that is, (1) foreign shareholding has significantly positive impacts on enterprise innovation behaviors; (2) technology introduction plays a complete mediating effect in foreign shareholding and enterprise innovation behaviors. On the basis of considering sample selective bias and endogenous problems, the propensity score matching (PSM) method is further applied to evaluate the impacts of foreign shareholding on enterprise innovation behaviors. After putting the endogenous problems and sample selective bias under control, the above conclusions are still robust. Thus, under the current complicated international situation, enterprises should be encouraged to attract foreign investment under moderate control, with a view to accelerating the promotion of enterprise innovation activities through the technology introduction brought about by foreign shareholding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent four decades, policy reform has integrated China's economy into global. Since 1981, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been gradually flowing into the Yangtze River Delta region. As a result, this region has enjoyed strong economic strength based on abundant human resources and convenient transportation network. Shanghai, the key city, has become one of the major cites attracting FDI; meanwhile, FDI also has had a tremendous impact on Shanghai's economic development, including employment. To sum up, Shanghai has been chosen as the research object in this paper. This research is organized by four parts: firstly, a theoretical analysis of employment effects of FDI is presented; secondly, after combining the actual utilization of FDI and employment in Shanghai, an empirical analysis of the effects of FDI on employment quantity and employment quality is carried out by data and regression models; thirdly, this research found FDI has exerted a negative influence on employment quantity in Shanghai; moreover, FDI also has shown a positive impact on the employment quality; and finally, the paper has proposed some suggestions to FDI's utility in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the distinction of different types of environmental regulations, this paper attempts to test the threshold effect of environmental regulation on the total factor productivity (TFP) by employing a panel threshold model and a province-level panel data set during 2006–2016. Research results show that the influence of command-and-control and market incentive environmental regulation on the total factor productivity has a single threshold conversion characteristic of foreign direct investment (FDI) and financial scale, but the impact behavior and influence degree around the threshold are inconsistent. The effect of voluntary conscious environmental regulation on the total factor productivity has a single threshold conversion feature of human capital, and moderately enhanced intensity of environmental regulation is conducive to promoting the total factor productivity after crossing the threshold. Finally, in order to enhance the regional total factor productivity, relevant policy recommendations are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of the Belt and Road strategy, China's foreign direct investment has grown rapidly, and the political risks faced by Chinese enterprises in overseas investment are also increasing. It is a common practice in the world's major capital exporting countries to prevent overseas investment risks by establishing an overseas investment insurance system. Among them, the insurance systems of the United States, Japan, Germany, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) are the most representative, and they are also models for countries to follow. At present, China has not yet established a legal system for overseas investment insurance. China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation is the only operating institution that provides overseas investment insurance in China, and its overseas investment insurance business only accounts for a small proportion and has not played its due role in safeguarding overseas investment. This paper, on the basis of comparative analysis of foreign experience, combined with China's actual problems and needs, selects the most worthy reference systems of various countries and proposes specific ideas for establishing and improving China's overseas investment insurance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research mainly analyzes the influence of foreign investment in the era of big data on China's economic growth, in the process of analyzing the impact of foreign investment on the national economy, based on the analysis of the current situation of foreign investment and error-correction model, etc., through the correlation coefficient matrix to determine the variables data needed to fit the model; after fitting the model, the residual model is extracted, and the stationarity of the residual sequence is tested. On the basis of the above, this paper analyzes the difference of foreign direct investment in different regions, combined with the coastal areas and central region model and actual situation analysis, analyzes the two foreign direct investment (FDI) development speeds, base development speed, and average development speed, at the same time for the two regions in 2017; the specific direction of FDI do a detailed analysis. Finally, a series of conclusions are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an index to measure the cultural differences between countries, culture distance (CD) is a widely used construct in international business and postulated to be symmetric in previous studies. However, CD symmetry across different countries is been demonstrated to result in the national CD paradox. A new asymmetry index utility cultural distance (UCD) is proposed to replace the previous one in this study. The cultural utility function is applied to calculate the UCD for a particular country, where the cultural bias could cause the asymmetric change of cultural score. The index is verified to be a significant variable in the regression analysis of China's outward foreign directing investment to 17 other countries in 15 years. The UCD demonstrated in this paper corrects the fallacious symmetry assumption on cultural distance and can maintain a consistent and effective conclusion on cultural differences in international business studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces (except Tibet) in China from 2012 to 2019, this paper uses the ML index method and spatial econometric model to evaluate the impact and spillover effect of innovation investment on environmental total factor productivity. The study found the following conclusions. (1) Environmental total factor productivity showed a fluctuating upward trend as a whole, and the driving force of environmental total factor productivity growth mainly came from technological progress. (2) There is global spatial correlation and positive spatial spillover effect in regional environmental total factor productivity. There is a certain spatial correlation in provincial environmental total factor productivity, and the improvement of environmental total factor productivity in this region will promote the improvement of environmental total factor productivity in surrounding areas. (3) Innovation investment, economic development, and foreign investment level play a significant role in promoting the improvement of environmental total factor productivity, and energy structure and human capital level have a negative impact on the improvement of environmental total factor productivity. (4) Innovation investment, economic development, human capital, and foreign investment have positive spillover effects on the improvement of environmental total factor productivity in the surrounding areas, while the energy structure shows negative spillover effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, eco-efficiency is one of the most widely used comprehensive indicators in many fields and sectors. Understanding eco-efficiency is of great significance to implement sustainable socioeconomic development for decision makers. To assess the comprehensive performance of industrial investment, the eco-efficiency of industrial investment (EEII) is constructed under the comprehensive perspective of economic benefits, energy consumption, and environmental impact in this paper. Then, a new superefficient undesirable-output slack-based measure DEA (SeUo-SBM-DEA) model is proposed and applied to assess the EEII of 30 provinces in China from 2015 to 2017, and its influencing factors are analyzed using the Tobit regression. The empirical results show the following: (1) the eco-efficiency of China's industrial investment is generally low (0.613), and there exists a significant regional disparity; namely, the average value of EEII was the highest in the eastern regions (0.838), followed by the central regions (0.6) and western regions (0.397). (2) R&D expenditure, economic development level, and foreign direct investment all had a significant positive effect on the eco-efficiency of industrial investment, while investment in treatment of industrial pollution sources and total education funds all had a significant negative effect. Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions to promote sustainable development of industrial investment based on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the scale of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) continues to expand, more and more scholars have begun to discuss the influence of OFDI on enterprise technological innovation. In order to be able to deeply explore the impact of enterprises' OFDI activities on enterprise technological innovation, this paper combines relevant enterprise data from 2015 to 2017 and uses the new method to test the "technological innovation effect" produced by the OFDI of Chinese enterprises. Finally, this paper concluded that the development of OFDI activities of enterprises can promote the improvement of the level of technological innovation of enterprises, and this promotion has a lag effect. R&D-type OFDI activities play a vital role in promoting the ability of technological innovation of enterprises. Compared with low-income host countries, investment in high-income host countries has a greater effect on promoting the ability of technological innovation of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss the effects of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on FDI and indigenous innovation and the overall effects of IPR on the Southern and Northern countries. Our model predicts that tighter IPR is good for FDI and indigenous innovation; however, the effects vary according to the initial resource endowment such as skill level and absorptive capacity. By a game theory model, we also find that tighter IPR benefits both sides if the innovation is the common knowledge to both players, and it improves indigenous innovation and welfare in a short term, but they will emerge in the long run. We also discuss the further direction to an empirical study. Finally, we make the following conclusion: IPR is part of business environment, and tighter IPR in progress is good for boosting welfare of both sides. It is time to build a better environment for IPR, but the cost of patent enforcement policy and the trade barrier must be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we use the differential game method to test the impact of joint implementation (JI) mechanism on pollution control in two bilateral countries. The Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations of the models are obtained by using the dynamic programming principle. We obtain the optimal emissions, optimal local and foreign investments in environment projects, optimal revenues, and optimal trajectories of carbon stock under three situations, namely, situation without JI, with JI (noncooperative), and with JI (cooperative), of the two countries by solving these equations. We also compare their optimal Nash equilibrium solutions. We find that the introduction of JI mechanism can slow down the growth of the carbon stocks by reducing emissions or increasing investment in emission reduction projects, compared to the situation without JI mechanism. However, the JI mechanism does not reduce the revenue of the two countries under certain conditions. Finally, some numerical tests are provided to illustrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The curse of dimensionality has been an open issue for many years and still is, as finding nonobvious and previously unknown patterns in ever-increasing amounts of high-dimensional data is not an easy task. Advancing in descriptive data analysis, the present paper proposes Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots (HUEPs) as a new visualization technique to combine the outputs of Exploratory Projection Pursuit and Clustering methods in a novel and informative way. As a case study, HUEPs are validated in a real-world context for analysing the internationalization strategy of companies, by taking into account bilateral distance between home and host countries. As a multifaceted concept, distance encompasses multiple dimensions. Together with data from both the countries and the companies, various psychic distances are analysed by means of HUEPs, to gain deep knowledge of the internationalization strategy of large Spanish companies. Informative visualizations are obtained from the analysed dataset, leading to useful business implications and decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper classifies environmental regulation into two types and constructs a theoretical framework to explore the influences of fee-based environmental regulation and invest-based environmental regulation on environmental pollution. It then establishes some dynamic spatial autoregressive nonlinear econometric models to test the theoretical hypothesis based on 30-area panel data from 2004 to 2016. The results illustrate that inverted "U" shape curve relationship exists between fee-based environmental regulation and environmental pollution, while a "U" shape curve relationship between invest-based environmental regulation and environmental pollution exists. In addition, the findings suggest that improving the proportion of secondary industry can directly promote the environmental quality while effectively control of foreign direct investment and fiscal decentralization is also indispensable. Thus, the government should make targeted research about the optimal intensity of fee-based environmental regulation and invest-based environmental regulation and make targeted enterprise policy for the environmental pollution reduce, which contains promoting the energy revolution and strengthening the depth and strength of opening-up step by step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting green urban development has become a common consensus to address environmental pollution and ecological damage, but we know little about the measurement and drivers of urban green innovation efficiency (GIE). In this article, firstly, we established a framework for assessing urban green innovation efficiency through multidimensional data, then used the spatial econometric model to reveal the spatiotemporal evolutionary characteristics of urban GIE, and, finally, analyzed the influencing factors and spatial spillover effects of urban GIE. The results show the following: (1) The overall urban GIE in China was low and had significant spatial agglomeration, mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions with spatial locking characteristics, while the GIE of cities in undeveloped regions does not change much. (3) There was much room for improvement in the input-output system of green innovation, considering that the sources of inefficiency in most cities were insufficient investment in scientific and technological innovation personnel and innovation environment, excessive environmental pollution, and limited technological output. (4) Foreign direct investment, financial development, and manufacturing industry agglomeration had positive effects on urban GIE. These research findings and policy implications are of certain reference value for other emerging developing countries to implement urban governance and green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of the "Going Out" policy and the "Belt and Road" initiative, Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in the countries along the "Belt and Road" increased substantially in the past decade. This paper analyzes the impact of institutional distance on Chinese OFDI and whether Chinese OFDI exhibits institutional risk preferences, using data on Chinese OFDI in 41 countries along the "Belt and Road" for the period from 2003 to 2018. We find that political institutional distance and economic institutional distance are both positively related to China's OFDI scale, while cultural distance has a negative impact on the investment scale. We also find that institutional distance has an asymmetric effect on China's OFDI. In particular, the worse the host country's political environment, the larger the Chinese OFDI, indicating that Chinese OFDI exhibits the political institutional risk preference. On the other hand, Chinese multinational enterprises are more willing to invest in host countries with high economic freedom. Culture institution environment of the host country has a positive but insignificant impact on the Chinese OFDI scale, indicating that Chinese OFDI shows the characteristics of cultural distance proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental technology innovation is a crucial measure of the quality of China's economic development and sustainable environmental protection. Based on the 2009–2017 provincial panel data from China, this article used the modified projection pursuit model to measure the environmental technology innovation capabilities of various regions. Moreover, this article empirically investigates the threshold effect of outward foreign direct investment on China's environmental technology innovation under different intellectual property protection levels. The results are as follows. First, the environmental technology innovation capabilities of China's regions vary significantly, showing an "east-middle-west" gradient decline trend similar to levels of economic development. Second, outward foreign direct investment has a significant reverse environmental technology innovation effect, but this effect has complex nonlinear characteristics. Third, in the process of outward foreign direct investment affecting environmental technology innovation, intellectual property protection has a significant double threshold effect. As the level of intellectual property protection continues to cross the threshold value, the effect direction of outward foreign direct investment on environmental technology innovation undergoes a sudden change from inhibition to promotion. However, when intellectual property protection is too high, the promotion effect is relatively limited. This paper provides some reference points and insights that should aid in establishing a scientific intellectual property protection system and raising the level of environmental technology innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research has been carried out on the "Belt and Road" initiative, most of it focusing on geographical economy and international trade. However, there is a lack of research on the carbon emissions efficiency of the countries along the "Belt and Road," especially regarding the impact of freight trade. To address this research gap, this paper first employs a metafrontier nonradial directional distance function to measure the carbon emission efficiency of 32 countries along the "Belt and Road" from 1990 to 2014. It then examines the role of freight trade. Our main research findings are as follows. Firstly, the carbon emission efficiency of the countries along the "Belt and Road" is generally low. Among them, Russia and Central Asia are mainly due to the large between-group gap in carbon emission efficiency, while Southeast Asia, Western Asia and North Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe are mainly due to the large within-group gap. Secondly, freight trade promotes carbon emission efficiency, but it will aggravate the gap between the contemporaneous technology and the group technology. Freight trade mainly promotes the contemporaneous carbon emission efficiency (CTCEI) and group-frontier carbon emission efficiency (ITCEI) of low fossil energy dependent countries, and the metafrontier carbon emission efficiency (GTCEI) of high fossil energy dependent countries. Thirdly, foreign direct investment (FDI) has a significant negative effect on a host country's ITCEI and GTCEI, and it will decrease the gap between the group technology and the metafrontier technology. However, freight trade can effectively prevent the entry of FDI, thereby indirectly improving carbon emission efficiency and reducing carbon emission gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies 3-stage data envelopment (DEA) of 24 listed companies in the development zone of Hubei Province from 2012 to 2017 based on the panel data; we used the DEA-Tobit model and regression analysis method on the sample in order to measure the factors affecting the innovation efficiency of listed companies and the efficiency of corporate innovation. The results demonstrated that the innovation efficiency of listed companies in the development zone of Hubei Province is relatively low. It is necessary to improve the innovation system of the development zone and give the full initiative to the role of corporate innovation as a mainstay. The four environmental variables of the number of enterprises, government subsidies, foreign direct investment in the development zone, and fixed asset investment have a significant impact on innovation efficiency. The enterprise size, operating capacity, and state-owned shares of the company have a significant positive impact on the innovation efficiency. But the number of years of the establishment has a significant negative impact on innovation efficiency. Moreover, the quality of the workers is not significant. Therefore, we must increase government investment in innovation to expand the scale of listed companies in the development zone, improve the environment for foreign investment, further strengthen the construction of talented people of companies, and enhance the original ability of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the driving mechanisms behind outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on regional green total factor innovation efficiency (GTFIE), focusing specifically on the external fiscal factor perspective. We measured the GTFIE using the super slacks-based model and established a threshold model using financial agglomeration and fiscal decentralization as moderating variables for empirical analysis. The findings indicate that the level of GTFIE in China is relatively low, with an average value of only 0.588 in the sample provinces. It is worth noting that there is a serious imbalance in China's regional green innovation development. The eastern region has an average GTFIE of 0.886 and is home to nine of the top ten GTFIE provinces. Moreover, regional financial factors exert a substantial moderating impact on the spillover of OFDI. OFDI exhibits a significant dual threshold effect on GTFIE under external fiscal moderation. Specifically, with an increase in the degree of financial agglomeration, the relationship between OFDI and GTFIE changes from being insignificant to a significant positive correlation, with a gradient enhancement. Meanwhile, the relationship between them exhibits an "inverted U-shaped" nonlinear dynamic pattern under fiscal decentralization moderation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic complexity index is an effective dimensionality reduction tool that is applied to forecast and predict future economic growth, income, and environmental quality. Renewable energy plays an important role in mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions. This study explores the nexus between economic complexity, renewable energy, FDI, trade, and environmental quality in Japan for the period 1970Q1-2019Q4. We use carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as dependent variable while economic complexity index (ECI), foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, renewable energy (RNE), and trade as explanatory variables. This study applies a quantile autoaggressive approach for analysis; the result of this study suggests a long-run implication of the ECI, FDI, GDP, RNE, and trade for the CO2 emissions. While only RNE and trade show mixed results in the short run, the rest of the variables do not have short-run implications. This implies that emissions mostly result in the industrial production activities only in the long run and in some quantiles only in the short run. The Japanese government may adopt different measures to reduce the CO2 emissions in the country, such as carbon tax and tax exemption on renewable energy investment. Furthermore, the government may adopt the renewal energy in production, which could achieve sustainable development goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper incorporates cooperative game theory into a real option method in a foreign direct investment setting and examines the operational decisions of a multinational corporation in a cooperative framework, where the corporation is endowed with an abandonment option and shares its profit with the host country. In particular, we investigate how the abandonment options affect the optimal investment timing and the optimal profit share of a foreign direct investment using a real option game method. We show that the flexibility of the abandonment option induces the corporation to investment earlier, which indicates the negative effects on investment trigger. The result is consistent with intuition since the abandonment option provides insurance and thus reduces the overall risk of the project. We also find that the introduction of the abandonment option reduces the optimal profit share in a cooperative framework and in turn the lower profit share increases the investment trigger, thereby having a positive effect on the investment threshold to hinder the investment. By numerical analysis, we find that the overall effect of the abandonment options is inversely related to the investment trigger. These findings provide quantitative analysis about the decisions regarding cooperation in international investment extraction projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The difficulty in translating legal sharia expressions and terminologies used in contracts arises from semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, contextual, and cultural features of the Islamic sharia expressions. The present study aims to address the problems arising when translating these contracts from Arabic into English and vice versa. It also aims to reassess the translations of several international business contracts translated from Arabic into English and vice versa to verify whether the legal Islamic terms and expressions have been accurately rendered or not. The Saudi legal system is based completely on sharia law. The Saudi contracts abound with religious expressions and terms, which sometimes have no equivalence in the English language. There is a crystal-clear cultural–religious gap between Arabic and English. The language of contracts must be accurate, precise, meaningful, and comprehensible. Any slight difference in translating these contracts might result in the loss of individual rights, which affects the foreign investments and the social life of residents and citizens. The present study is a qualitative study that adopts a critical hermeneutic method to address the highly controversial issues relating to the translation of Islamic legal terms and expressions. The study has found that the Islamic legal terms and expressions are translatable providing that the translator could use a hermeneutical translational approach. The study is original in the sense that it deals with the problems of translating the religious expressions embedded and constituted in the Saudi contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese domestic firms engage actively in the cross-border merger and acquisition (CBMA) markets, which are crucial in China's foreign investment economics. Acquisition premium has attracted stakeholders' attention to determine whether the CBMA decision is optimal. This study employs a novel model to assess decision-making efficiency by overbidding based on a profit maximization assumption. Based on the Chinese CBMA transaction data from 2009 to 2019 of Chinese acquiring firms, the descriptive analysis indicates the widespread overbidding phenomenon in Chinese CBMAs. Moreover, empirical findings reveal that SOEs (vs. non-SOEs) experience less overbidding among acquiring firms. This study also shows that firms from the high-tech industry tend to be less overbidding (more efficient) in the CBMAs' setting. The findings may have policy implications for China's outward investment efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following decades of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation industry, most car companies will stop producing petrol cars and promote the development of new energy vehicles in the near future, even in China. This study is based on energy vehicle exports using China's 31 provinces' panel data from 2010 to 2020. Considering that China mainly engages in processing trade, this study analyzes the domestic energy vehicle's export sophistication after deleting intermediate goods, measuring the relationship between export sophistication and industrial upgrading with static and dynamic panel models. Then, heterogeneity tests were deployed to examine the domestic export sophistication of three major economic belts partition. The results revealed that improving export sophistication is conducive to realizing China's industrial upgrading. China's new energy vehicles industry is positively affected by export sophistication, R&D, foreign direct investment, average GDP growth rate, market factors, and human resources over the long run. Regarding regional stratification, domestic export sophistication in the eastern and western regions has more significant effects on promoting industrial upgrading than in the central region. In particular, in western regions, every increase in export sophistication by one unit will bring a significant industrial upgrading effect. Given this, China's new energy vehicles should increase export sophistication to help the country's industrial upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1980 and 2020, the study looks at "An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Population Growth on Economic Growth in Ethiopia Using an Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) Model Approach." The appraisal coefficient of population growth (POP) and the implication is positive and significant, according to the findings of this study. However, in response to the long-term association between population expansion and economic growth in Ethiopia, the macroeconomic variables were subjected to a limit test and a broader causality test. From the finding of bound test, since the value of F-statics is greater than the upper boundary line, there are long run equilibrium relationships among RGDP, population size, foreign direct investment, personal remittance, population growth rate, rate of inflation, and gross capital formation. According to the findings of the Granger causality test, real gross domestic product can cause Ethiopian population size (POP), but population number (POP) cannot cause real gross domestic product at the same time. The motivation of doing this research was to know the sign and effects of population growth on economic growth. Finally, in order to boost Ethiopia's economic growth, the government should implement policies that would attract foreign investors. The government should also establish a benchmark to ensure that the economy increases faster than the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study selected relevant data of China from 2006 to 2019 and adopted a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model to conduct an empirical analysis on the dynamic mechanism of a series of problems including "FDI (foreign direct investment), economic scale, and environmental pollution," "FDI, industrial structure, and environmental pollution," and "FDI, production technology, and environmental pollution." Our research results showed that there are differences in the optimal lag order under different conditions, such as under the action mechanism of economic scale and industrial structure, and the optimal lag order was 1, while under the action mechanism of production technology, its value was 2. FDI had a long-term effect on the environment; under the dual-action mechanism of economic scale and industrial structure, the environmental effect of FDI reached the maximum within 2 periods, the effect lasted a relatively long time, and the response of environmental pollution to the technological level reached the maximum between the fourth period and the sixth period. In terms of the overall situation in China, the FDI did not produce an obvious effect on environmental pollution; on the contrary, it exhibited a trend of environmental improvement, which varied with the action mechanism and the region; and also, the improvement of technological level can also significantly improve the quality of environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) are important for a country's economic development, but the world market for FDI has become more competitive. This paper empirically analyses the exchange rate movements and foreign direct investment (FDI) relationship using annual data on ASEAN economies, that is, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. By employing ARDL bounds test approach, the empirical results show the existence of significant long-run cointegration between exchange rate and FDI for the case of Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines with all countries recording negative coefficient implying that the appreciation of Singapore dollar, Malaysian ringgit, and the Philippine peso has a positive impact on FDI inflows. Using the ECM based ARDL approach for causality test, both Singapore and the Philippines show long-run bidirectional causality between exchange rate and FDI whereas long-run unidirectional causality running from the exchange rate to FDI in Malaysia. Furthermore, this study also found that short-run unidirectional causality running from the exchange rate to FDI exists in Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Dunning's eclectic theory, the location advantages play a key role in international investment mode choice, in which the country relations are important determinants. In some previous studies, the country relations and another bilateral factor, the country distance, are often confused, which can result in the inconsistency of conclusions. And excepting political factors, the economic dependence and other relations are insufficiently considered in the literature. This article makes a distinction between relation and distance, and puts forward a simplified analytical framework, the indicator system, and some quantitative methods for country relations. The indicators, including political, economic, and social factors, can better satisfy the horizontal analysis of the outbound investment. The economic and social indicators are determined by the magnitude of interaction as well as the share in the home country, and hence, the evaluation results can reflect the differences between the two countries. Finally, by evaluating the relations of other BRICS countries with China, the rationality is illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness, domestic demand, and exchange rate on the export performance of Bangladesh over the period of 1980-2009 using the vector error correction (VEC) model under the time series framework. The stationarity of the variables is checked both at the intercept and intercept plus trend regression forms under the ADF and PP stationarity tests. The Johansen-Juselius procedure is applied to test the cointegration relationship between variables followed by the VEC regression model. The empirical results trace a long-run equilibrium relationship in the variables. FDI is found to be an important factor in explaining the changes in exports both in the short run and long-run. However, the study does not trace any significant causal relationship for the cases of trade openness, domestic demand, and exchange rate. The study concludes that Bangladesh should formulate FDI-led polices to enhance its exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the rise of investment protectionism has led to the decline of investment openness all over the world. Based on the perspective of valuation effects which affects changes in national external wealth, we carry out empirical analysis and find that investment openness has inhibitory effect on national external wealth in the short term but promotes it in the lag period. Furthermore, we use the open economy macroeconomic theory (NOEM) to construct DSGE model and find that reducing the degree of investment openness will lead to the rise of domestic investment asset prices and produce positive valuation effects, which will lead to the short term increase of national external wealth. However, this effect has poor persistence. In the long run, the reduction of openness will hinder transnational investment, reduce the income of transnational investment, and eventually lead to the deterioration of national external wealth. The DSGE model we constructed can be applicable for solving some problems for open economic policy. From the conclusion we have acquired, it is indicated that nations who want to maintain the steady growth of the external wealth should continue to improve investment openness and international investment environment, alleviate investment information asymmetry, and avert increasing investment protectionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is widely recognized that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows have a dominant effect on economic growth of host countries, the determinants of FDI inflows are still unclear. Especially, about the effect of exchange rate on FDI inflow, the results reached by scholars vary across countries or regions. It is of great practical and theoretical significance to explore the influencing effects of exchange rate on FDI inflow and identify the mechanisms that underlie them in close association with regional economic characters so as to help local government implement targeted government policies to achieve sustainable FDI inflow and sustainable economic growth. For this purpose, the influencing effects and the influencing mechanisms of the exchange rate on FDI inflows are investigated for Zhejiang province, China, over 1985–2019 by employing the co-integration tests, vector error correction models, Granger causality tests, and impulse response tests. Empirical results indicate that there are long-term stable and unidirectional causal relationship between the exchange rate and FDI inflow. Continuous appreciation of RMB against USD discourages FDI inflow. The mechanism which underlies the long-term relationship is the wealth effect, rather than the cost effect or the demand effect. By contrast, in the short run, neither the exchange rate nor the three influencing mechanism has a significant impact on FDI inflow. These results suggest policy recommendations for improving FDI by accumulating human capital and improving infrastructure. These findings are also applicable for other countries or regions with similar economic characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the theoretical mechanism analysis of FDI, regional innovation, and green economic efficiency, this article uses China's provincial panel data to calculate the provincial green economic efficiency level based on the three-stage DEA method and uses the system GMM model, intermediary effect model, and threshold model to empirically test the specific effects and transmission paths of FDI on the efficiency of the green economy. Research shows that FDI is one of the important factors that promote the improvement of green economic efficiency. Subregional tests have found that FDI has a significant regional heterogeneity in promoting the efficiency of the green economy. The mediation effect test found that the mediation effect of regional innovation is significant, and FDI can significantly promote the growth of green economic efficiency through regional innovation. The threshold effect analysis found that there are significant and effective double thresholds for regional economic levels, and the impact of FDI on green economic efficiency is heterogeneous within different threshold intervals. The research conclusions provide new inspiration for China to allocate FDI more rationally and efficiently under the new development pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a new model of urban development, it is important to scientifically analyze the impact of smart cities on the quality of foreign direct investment (FDI). This article constructs a difference in differences' model to test the impact of foreign direct investment quality in smart city construction based on panel data of 226 prefecture-level cities from 2006–2017. Study shows the following. (1) The construction of smart cities has significantly improved the quality of FDI utilized in pilot cities. (2) Heterogeneity analysis shows that smart city construction significantly contributes to the quality of FDI in the western city subsample and a subsample of cities with low natural resource dependence. After a series of robustness tests and placebo tests, the above conclusions still hold. The results of the study suggest that China should further promote the construction of smart cities to optimize the quality of foreign direct investment and promote high-quality economic growth. The findings of the study also provide theoretical and practical references for the construction of smart cities in China and other countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the equity (industry) premium of seventeen nonfinancial sectors covering sample 306 firms using monthly data from January 2002 to December 2018. Two-stage least square (2SLS) method is applied to estimate the macro-based multifactor model. It is found that the market premium and the interest rate factors are significantly affecting the industry equity premium of all the nonfinancial sectors. However, there exists a positive effect of other macroeconomic variables such as money supply, foreign direct investment, and industrial production which is different for the different sectors based on its nature of product and services they offered. The industries based on their product development which are linked to particular macroeconomic variables have more effect than others such as increase in money supply which cannot increase the sale of pharmaceutical products until needed. Similarly, an interesting insight reveals that industries producing seasonal goods, e.g., food producing, are not very much affected by macroeconomic variables but the change in seasons and similar results also revealed for tobacco industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies may have their level of optimal working capital that maximizes their values through the effective management of current liabilities and assets. Previously, many studies were made on the impact of working capital management on the company's performance in different sectors; however, its impact on the performance of firms that are engaged in export activities was not given any consideration and this particular study has attempted to investigate the fundamental impact of working capital management on the export firm's performance in Ethiopia. To analyze this particular study, a total of 164 exporters operating in Ethiopia have been taken as a sample and both primary and secondary data collection methods were used. The data gathered from the sample of the study were analyzed using a multiple linear regression model and the result reveals that working capital management which was measured by account receivables period, cash conversion cycle, and accounts payable period has a statistically significant and positive correlation with the performance of exporting firms in Ethiopia which was measured by both return on assets and return on investment. However, working capital management which was measured by the inventory conversion period has a statistically significant and positive impact on return on investment, but it has an insignificant impact on the performance of sampled export firms in Ethiopia which was measured by return on assets. Based on the result of the study, firms may need to extend credit terms for customers, may prolong their cash conversion cycle, may need an extended payment period, and may or may not hold a high volume of inventory. All extending periods and cycles shall be made up to the extent of attaining an optimal level of working capital and better to implement a conservative policy of working capital management. Thus, it is advisable to consider the result of this study while making decisions regarding their working capital management to support their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on the role of renewable energy consumption and other environmental factors in carbon emission have got considerable attention recently, and they are predicted to get exaggerated in the coming decades. Energy usage increases economic growth and development of a country and backs to global warming and carbon emission which affect the local environment. For the prosperity of a country, it is felt crucial to measure the unavoidable impacts which effect environmental quality. Consequently, the current study investigates the interrelationship of renewable energy consumption, carbon dioxide emission, foreign direct investment, and economic growth in 190 countries of the world for the period of 1980 to 2018. By employing both static and dynamic models, the findings indicate that carbon emission, renewable energy consumption, foreign direct investment, and economic growth affect each other significantly whereas renewable energy consumption has been found beneficial for environmental quality; however, it decreases the inflow of FDI. RE has a decreasing impact, while FDI and carbon emission promote economic growth. The study suggests the promotion of renewable energy resources and policies related to FDI to promote the quality of the environment and achieve economic growth as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of rapid development of high-speed rail, the relationship between high-speed rail and air pollution needs to be tested and determined. Most research studies focused on the impact of high-speed rail on environmental pollution and just viewed high-speed rail as a control variable, which lacked a direct study on this relationship. Also, these rarely involved regional research, which is short of pertinence and insufficient understanding of regional issues. Therefore, based on the difference-in-differences (DID) model which is a natural experiment evaluation method, this study examined the impact of high-speed rail opening on air pollution by using the panel data of Jiangsu province, China, from the year of 2000 to 2017. The empirical results showed that the opening of Jiangsu high-speed rail, which increases cities' good day significantly by 21.5%, has inhibitory effect on air pollution. Among control variables, there is no inverted "U" relationship between the economic development level and air pollution. Personal income and urbanization significantly improve air pollution, whereas foreign direct investment exacerbates it. And the results are still valid after robustness tests, including trend test and counterfactual test. Moreover, this study explores the relationship between the degree of reducing pollution caused by high-speed rail and the location of cities, which found that the opening of high-speed rail can greatly improve air pollution of areas in central city circle. Finally, it is found that when high-speed rail and other possible pollution items coexist, the improved effect of high-speed rail on air pollution is still obvious. Therefore, in order to exert the mitigating effect of high-speed rail on air pollution, it is necessary to rationally plan high-speed railway lines and develop the high-speed railways in cities closer to Shanghai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]