Economic Policy Uncertainty, Bilateral Investment Treaties, and Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment

This paper examines the effect of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in promoting outward Chinese foreign direct investment (COFDI) in the presence of rising economic policy uncertainty in China’s partner countries. We postulate that the signing of BITs should help stimulate COFDI because the treaties send a credible signal to foreign investors about the host country’s intent to protect Chinese investment, and make it more difficult for the host country to violate its treaty obligations. BITs that contain rigorous investment protection and liberalization provisions, in particular, should be more likely to encourage COFDI as they directly influence Chinese investors’ expectations about the stability, predictability, and security of the host market. However, while BITs generally promote COFDI, host country economic policy uncertainty may also limit their effectiveness. This is because uncertainty tends to undermine investor confidence, trigger capital flows from high- to low-risk countries, and dampen commercial activities. Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimation models of the determinants of COFDI to 188 countries between 2003 and 2017 lend substantial support to our conjectures.

经济政策不确定性、双边投资协定（BITS）以及中国对外直接投资(COFDI)

关键词：双边投资协定；中国对外直接投资；贸易引力模型；经济政策不确定性。

本论文考察了在中国合作伙伴国家经济政策不确定性增长的情况下，双边投资协定（BITs）在推动中国对外直接投资(COFDI)上所起到的作用。 我们提出签订双边协议应该会有助于刺激中国对外直接投资，因为它们有助于对外国投资者释放出可靠的信号，表明投资接收国在保护中国投资这一问题上的严肃性，并且增加了投资接受国违反协议规定的义务的难度。那些含有严格保护投资和市场自由化条款的双边投资协议应该会更能鼓励中国对外直接投资，因为它们直接影响到中国投资者对接受国市场的稳定性、可预见性以及安全性的预期。 然而尽管双边投资协议一般来说是促进中国对外投资的，接收国经济政策的不确定性却趋于破坏投资者信心，触发资本从高风险国家向低风险国家流动，抑制商业活动，从而也可能会限制双边投资协定在促进中国对外直接投资方面的有效性。对中国2003年到2017年期间在188国的对外直接投资的决定因素进行的泊松伪最大似然估计的结果大为支持我们的预测。

Translated from English by Li Guo