Has the Belt and Road Initiative Brought New Opportunities to Countries Along the Routes to Participate in Global Value Chains?

Abstract

Using the data of 40 host countries during 2010 to 2017, we investigate whether the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has brought new opportunities to countries along the routes to participate in global value chains (GVCs). We employ a difference-in-differences (DID) method with propensity score matching (PSM) to solve the self-selection bias problem. The results indicate that BRI has a significant positive effect on promoting the countries along the routes to participate in GVCs, and the effect is lagging and fluctuant. Specifically, we find that the promotion effects are particularly significant in the second year of the BRI’s implementation. The heterogeneity analysis of Belt and Road (BR) countries shows that there remains a significant positive effect on developing BR countries as before, while the opposite is true for developed BR countries.