Investment Efficiency of Chinese Enterprises Under ‘Belt and Road’ Initiatives: What Information Do We Get From Studies?

Abstract

In recent years, the economic effects of the belt and road initiative have attracted much attention. However, few related studies have explored how this initiative affects the investment efficiency of enterprises. This article regards the ‘belt and road’ initiative as a quasi-natural experiment and investigates its effects on the investment efficiency of Chinese enterprises. The difference in difference model was used based on data on Chinese listed companies in 2011-2018. According to the findings of this study, the belt and road initiative significantly increased the investment efficiency of Chinese enterprises. On this basis, this paper explores the paths with which the belt and road initiative affects the investment efficiency of Chinese enterprises from the perspectives of both environmental uncertainty and tax incentives. The mediating effect of environmental uncertainty between the belt and road initiative and the investment efficiency of Chinese enterprises assumes a significant “masking effect,” while the mediating effect of tax incentives between them is not obvious.