The Belt And Road Initiative And The Peer Effect Of Chinese Companies' Overseas Investmen

The investment decision of an enterprise affects the development prospect and profitability.Most traditional theories study the investment of enterprise as a single isolated individual.However,in the market economy,the enterprise cannot exist in isolation.The surrounding information and environment and other enterprises of the same type may affect the investment decision,The convergence of behavior among enterprises caused by this effect is called "peer effect".Will the "the Belt and Road Initiative" have a peer effect on enterprises’ overseas investment behavior? What is the production mechanism? In order to verify the impact of the "the Belt and Road Initiative" on the overseas investment behavior of China’s listed companies,this paper,based on the perspective of peer group effect,takes China’s A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2020 as samples,builds models and conducts empirical research.The research shows that:(1)The "the Belt and Road Initiative" can significantly narrow the gap between individual enterprises and enterprises in the same industry and in the same province in terms of overseas investment,that is,the industry peer effect and geographical peer effect of Chinese enterprises’ overseas investment are significant,and the results are still robust after a series of robustness tests,whether in industry or geographical peer groups.(2)The heterogeneity study shows that for state-owned enterprises and enterprises located in 18 provinces along the“the Belt and Road”,the "the Belt and Road Initiative" will significantly narrow the gap between state-owned enterprises and enterprises in 18 provinces along the Belt and Road and similar enterprises,but has no significant impact on non-stateowned enterprises and enterprises along the Belt and Road.(3)Mechanism analysis shows that the intensity of government subsidies will weaken the influence of the“ the Belt and Road Initiative” on the peer effect of Chinese enterprises’ overseas investment industry,that is,the more government subsidies,the more significant the peer effect of the “ the Belt and Road Initiative” on Chinese enterprises’ outbound investment industry,and the marketization degree of provinces will also weaken the investment gap between the “ the Belt and Road Initiative” on individual enterprises and enterprises in the same province,that is,the higher the marketization degree,The “the Belt and Road Initiative” has the more significant geographical peer effect on Chinese enterprises’ overseas investment.Therefore,as the main body of the "the Belt and Road Initiative",enterprises should seize the opportunity to actively participate in the "the Belt and Road" cooperation and increase market share.