School of Management, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou, China.
Department of Management Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Aug;29(37):56454-56472. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-19729-3. Epub 2022 Mar 26.
Under the Belt and Road initiative, the cooperative network between Chinese firms and participating countries has evolved rapidly to seek new markets for foreign investment. Foreign investment is one of the most effective ways of improving environmental energy efficiency through technology spillover. Therefore, first, this article applies the foreign direct investment theory with an interactive effect of institutional difference on energy efficiency. We employed the meta-frontier super-slacks-based measure approach to find the sampled countries' environmental energy efficiency. We also divided the study sample into six regions to consider group heterogeneity and the variation in energy efficiency performance in various Belt and Road regions. For the empirical investigation, we applied the generalized method of moments approach. The impact of China's outward foreign direct investment on energy efficiency is positive in the full sample. Nevertheless, the region-wise study found mixed results regarding China's outward foreign direct investment to promote energy efficiency and the Belt and Road region. In addition, the study further infers that institutional distance can be the greater impediment to promoting host countries' efficient energy-based investment.
在“一带一路”倡议下，中国企业与参与国之间的合作网络迅速发展，以寻求外国投资的新市场。外国投资是通过技术溢出提高环境能源效率最有效的方法之一。因此，本文首先应用了具有制度差异互动效应的外国直接投资理论，来衡量能源效率。我们采用了基于超效率前沿的 meta-frontier 测度方法来衡量抽样国家的环境能源效率。我们还将研究样本分为六个地区，以考虑组间异质性和“一带一路”各地区能源效率表现的变化。对于实证研究，我们应用了广义矩方法。在全样本中，中国对外直接投资对能源效率的影响是积极的。然而，分区域研究发现，中国对外直接投资对促进能源效率和“一带一路”地区的影响存在差异。此外，该研究进一步推断，制度距离可能是促进投资国有效能源投资的更大障碍。
