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

该合同符合2013年3月26日颁布的《2013年综合和进一步持续拨款法案》（P.L. 113-6）第五章第543节B部分。这个研究项目对美国的经济利益有影响，因为它有助于形成对中国参与全球经济的更微妙的预期。该项目解决了有关国际投资的几个问题，尤其是来自威权社会的投资。具体来说，该项目提出的问题是：国内政治如何影响海外投资？来自专制政权的国际投资者与来自民主国家的投资者有本质上的不同吗？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，但关于外国直接投资（FDI）的大部分知识来自对成熟民主国家投资者的研究。本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。该项目假设，在一个专制国家，投资风险和回报往往是不匹配的：当投资出现问题时，处于赞助圈的公司可以指望得到政治精英的纾困，从而使它们能够将与对外直接投资相关的风险社会化。因此，专制国家中有政治关系的公司更有可能投资于风险更高的海外目的地，但实际上，它们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征用，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的境地，而这些企业本身也没有参与全球治理的巨大动力。该项目的知识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，模拟不同政治制度下政治精英和公司之间的战略互动，并得出他们的最佳投资组合。所有现有的FDI模型都是基于对成熟民主国家投资的研究，并假设企业的利润最大化独立于政治精英。拟议中的理论将是首批允许企业与政治精英之间进行战略互动，并将母国政治纳入FDI决定因素的理论之一。该理论通过访谈、基于中国和越南原始公司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进行了实证检验。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外国直接投资数据提供补充，并使更广泛的学术界受益。虽然研究的重点是中国，但威权政治调节跨国公司选择的机制并非中国公司所特有。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）政治如何影响总投资流动或某一多边公司的选择。事实证明，随着越来越多来自不同政治背景的投资者加入全球投资版图，这一研究议程的局限性越来越大。该项目侧重于母国政治变化的影响，扩展了当前的研究议程。除了它的知识价值之外，这个项目对决策有广泛的影响。该理论认为，中国的全球经济扩张有超出其治理意愿和准备的趋势。此外，企业可能更有动力扩大自己的官僚能力，从本国榨取租金，而不是建立真正具有竞争力的全球业务。在实施“走出去”十年后，越来越多的证据表明，中国的海外投资在盈利能力和可持续性方面遇到了严重问题。与缺乏经验和国际敌意的普遍论点相反，该研究表明，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，研究结果将使人们对中国对待外国直接投资的方式有更细致的了解，这对美国的经济利益来说是一个关键问题。

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.