Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: How Authoritarian Politics Shapes China's Outward Direct Investments

该奖项满足司B，标题五，第。2013年综合和进一步持续拨款法案（P.L.）113-6，2013年3月26日颁布）。这一研究项目对美国的经济利益具有影响，因为它有助于形成一种对中国在全球参与世界经济的更微妙的预期。该项目探讨了有关国际投资的几个问题，特别是来自专制社会的问题。具体而言，该项目提出的问题是：国内政治如何影响海外投资？来自独裁政权的国际投资者是否与来自民主国家的投资者有本质的不同？来自中国和俄罗斯等国的投资正在发挥越来越重要的作用，但有关外国直接投资（FDI）的大部分知识来自对成熟民主国家投资者的研究。这个项目阐述了专制政治制度的基本特征如何影响企业的对外投资。该项目假定，在一个专制国家，投资风险和回报往往不匹配：当投资失败时，处于赞助圈的公司可以指望得到政治精英的救助，使它们能够将与对外直接投资有关的风险社会化。因此，专制国家中有政治关系的公司更有可能在风险更高的目的地进行海外投资，但事实上可能不太愿意为自己的投资寻求保护，无论是参与全球治理，贿赂东道国政府以防止资产被没收，还是游说军事行动。中国企业随心所欲的投资风格很可能使中国领导人陷入被动地位，而企业本身也没有参与全球治理的强烈动机。该项目的学术价值尤其与其在政治经济学和外国直接投资研究方面的理论进步有关。它将为国际政治经济学（IPE）的学术研究做出重要的理论和实证贡献。该项目包括一个创新的理论模型的政治精英和公司之间的战略互动在不同的政治制度，并得出他们的最佳投资组合。所有现有的外国直接投资模型都是基于对成熟民主国家投资的研究，并假设企业独立于政治精英实现利润最大化。拟议的理论将是第一个允许公司和政治精英之间的战略互动，并将母国政治作为外国直接投资的决定因素。通过访谈、基于中国和越南原始企业层面调查的统计分析以及在中国和赞比亚进行的关键案例研究，对该理论进行了实证检验。该项目的实证部分在公司层面创建了两个原始调查数据集。这些调查数据将为稀缺的企业层面的FDI数据库提供补充，并使更广泛的学术界受益。虽然研究重点是中国，但威权政治对跨国公司选择的影响机制并不局限于中国企业。更广泛地说，关于外国直接投资的现有学术研究几乎完全集中在东道国（接受国）的政治如何影响总投资流量或某一多边公司的选择。随着越来越多来自不同政治背景的投资者加入全球投资领域，这一研究议程越来越受到限制。该项目通过关注母国政治变化的影响，扩展了目前的研究议程。除了其知识价值外，该项目对决策具有广泛的影响。该理论认为，中国的全球经济扩张有超过其治理意愿和准备程度的趋势。此外，公司可能更有动力发展其官僚能力，从本国榨取租金，而不是建立真正有竞争力的全球企业。在实施“走出去”政策十年后，越来越多的证据表明，中国海外投资在盈利能力和可持续性方面遇到了严重问题。与普遍认为中国缺乏经验和国际敌意的观点相反，研究表明，除非中国能够对其以庇护为基础的经济进行实质性的改革，否则问题可能会持续存在或恶化。一旦研究结束，研究结果将为中国对待外国直接投资的方式提供更细致的理解，这对美国的经济利益至关重要。

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013). This research project has implications for US economic interests because it helps form a more nuanced expectation about China's global involvement in the world economy. The project addresses several questions about international investment, especially from authoritarian societies. Specifically, the project asks: How does domestic politics shape investments abroad? Are international investors from authoritarian regimes inherently different from those from democratic countries? Investments from countries like China and Russia are playing an increasingly important role, but most of the knowledge about foreign direct investments (FDI) comes from studying investors from mature democracies. This project explicates how the fundamental features of an autocratic political system impact firms' outward investments. The project postulates that investment risks and returns are often mismatched in an autocracy: companies in patronage circles can count on being bailed out by the political elite when investments go badly, allowing them to socialize risks associated with outward FDI. As a result, politically connected companies in an autocracy are more likely to invest abroad in riskier destinations, but may in fact be less motivated to seek protection for their investments, whether that entails participating in global governance, bribing the host government to prevent expropriation of assets, or lobbying for military activism. The freewheeling investment styles of Chinese corporations may well corner Chinese leaders into a reactive position while the companies themselves have no great incentives to participate in global governance. The project's intellectual merit is especially associated with its theoretical advancements in the study of political economy and FDI. It stands to make a significant theoretical and empirical contributions to scholarship in international political economy (IPE). The project includes an innovative theory modeling the strategic interaction between the political elite and companies in different political regimes and deriving their optimal investment portfolios. All existing models for FDI are based on studying investments from mature democracies and assume that firms maximize profits independently from political elites. The proposed theory will be one of the first to allow strategic interaction between companies and political elites and incorporate home country politics as a determinant of FDI. The theory is tested empirically using interviews, statistical analyses based on original firm-level surveys in China and Vietnam, as well as critical case studies conducted in China and Zambia. The empirical portion of the project creates two original survey datasets at the firm level. These survey data will add to a scarce pool of firm-level data on FDI and benefit the wider scholarly community.While the research focuses on China, the mechanism through which authoritarian politics mediates the choices of its multinational corporations is not specific to Chinese companies. More broadly, existing scholarship on FDI has focused almost exclusively on how host (recipient) country politics affects aggregate investment flow or the choices of a given multilateral corporation. This research agenda is proving increasingly limiting as more investors hailing from diverse political backgrounds join the global investment landscape. The project, by focusing on the impact of variations in home country politics, extends the current research agenda. In addition to its intellectual merit, this project has wide-ranging implications for policy-making. The theory suggests that China's global economic spread has the tendency to exceed its willingness and readiness to govern. Further, companies may have more motivation to grow their bureaucratic capacity and extract rents from their home country than to build truly competitive global businesses. After one decade of implementing the Go Out policy, evidence is mounting that Chinese overseas investments have encountered serious problems in profitability and sustainability. Contrary to the common arguments for mere inexperience and international hostility, the research suggests that unless China can bring forth substantive reform to its patronage-based economy, problems may persist or worsen. Once the research is concluded, the findings will provide a more nuanced understanding of China's approach to FDI, a critical issue for US economic interests.