| 魏浩,刘缘.国际客运新航线开通与中国利用外资新优势——基于人员跨境流动成本视角的实证分析[J].数量经济技术经济研究,2025,(10):133-155 | | 国际客运新航线开通与中国利用外资新优势——基于人员跨境流动成本视角的实证分析 | | The Launch of New International Passenger Air Routes and China’s New Advantages in Utilizing Foreign Investment: An Analysis from the Perspective of Cross-border Personnel Mobility Costs | | | | DOI： | | 中文关键词: 国际客运航线 人员跨境流动 外资企业数量 利用外资规模 | | 英文关键词: International Passenger Air Routes Cross-border Movement of Personnel Number of Foreign-invested Enterprises Scale of Foreign Capital Utilization | | 基金项目: | | | 中文摘要: | | 本文基于2007~2022年全球企业投资数据，以开通国际客运新航线为准自然实验，考察了人员跨境流动成本降低对中国新增外资的影响。研究发现，开通国际客运新航线通过缩短人员跨境流动时间，显著增加了跨国公司在华新设外资企业数量和扩大了对华投资规模。异质性分析表明，开通国际客运新航线的利用外资效应对旅行时间高度敏感，但对旅行费用不敏感。机制分析表明，提高信息获取效率、缓解融资约束和促进文化交流是开通国际客运新航线影响跨国公司投资行为的显著路径。进一步研究发现，开通国际客运新航线显著增强了中国市场对跨国公司的投资吸引力，提升了跨国公司的投资收益，与低融资约束跨国公司相比，中国市场对高融资约束跨国公司的吸引力更大，更能提升这类公司的投资收益。本文的政策含义是，聚焦优化国际客运航线，缩短中国与外资来源地之间的时空距离，打造中国利用外资的新优势，是中国利用外资工作的重要方向。 | | 英文摘要: | | Due to the high-standard opening-up, exploring the foreign direct investment (FDI) utilization effects of cross-border personnel mobility holds significant theoretical and practical implications for China’s efforts to attract and leverage foreign investment more effectively. In an era of globalization, the movement of people across borders is an increasingly vital component of international economic interactions. The existing literature has primarily examined the impact of long-term cross-border personnel flows, particularly international migration, on FDI, while overlooking the critical role of short-term cross-border flows, especially international business travel, in the realm of international investment.Based on global enterprise investment data from 2007 to 2022 and using the launch of new international passenger routes as a quasi-natural experiment, this study investigates the impact of reduced cross-border mobility costs on the increase in new foreign investment in China. The main findings are as follows.The launch of new international passenger routes significantly increases the number of foreign-invested enterprises newly established by multinational corporations in China and the scale of their investment in the country by shortening cross-border travel time, demonstrating a notable FDI utilization effect. This conclusion remains valid after addressing potential endogeneity issues through methods such as restricting sample ranges and identifying instrumental variables. Additionally, robustness tests, including parallel trend tests, heterogeneity-robust estimation, exclusion of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, investment agreements, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, consideration of tax havens, and placebo tests, confirm the reliability of the findings.Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the greater the reduction in travel time achieved by new international passenger routes, the stronger their FDI utilization effect. However, reductions in travel expenses do not influence this effect. This indicates that the FDI utilization effect of new international passenger routes is highly sensitive to travel time but insensitive to travel costs. This suggests that for businesses, the ability to quickly and efficiently move personnel across borders is more crucial than mere cost savings when it comes to making investment decisions.New international passenger routes primarily attract FDI to China through three channels—enhancing information acquisition efficiency, alleviating financing constraints, and promoting cultural exchange. Specifically, by facilitating entry for overseas investors to conduct on-site inspections, these routes effectively improve information acquisition efficiency, thereby promoting FDI inflows. They also enhance multinational corporations’ financing capabilities, thereby easing the financing constraints they face and facilitating FDI. Furthermore, by attracting international tourists to China, these routes foster cultural exchange, which promotes FDI by enhancing mutual understanding and trust between investors and the host country.Furthermore, using the launch of new international passenger routes as a quasi-natural experiment to enhance the host country’s investment attractiveness, this study empirically examines the impact of these routes on the resource allocation and investment efficiency of multinational corporations’ investments in China versus other countries. The findings reveal that by reducing the time costs for overseas personnel to enter China, new international passenger routes enhance the country’s investment attractiveness to multinational corporations, prompting them to allocate more investment funds to China. Compared to multinational corporations with lower financing constraints, those with higher financing constraints are more inclined to concentrate their limited capital in their foreign-invested enterprises in China following the launch of new routes, thereby improving investment returns. This study provides new empirical evidence on the effectiveness of internal capital markets.Currently, China’s investment attraction efforts face external risks, such as intensifying international competition and rising geopolitical tensions, as well as internal challenges, including increasing labor costs, manufacturing relocation, and industrial chain transfers. Therefore, the Chinese government must attach great importance to the positive role of cross-border personnel mobility in attracting foreign investment. It should also focus on optimizing international passenger routes to reduce the spatial-temporal distance between China and foreign investment sources, lower cross-border mobility costs, significantly streamline visa procedures for foreign business travelers, and create new advantages for leveraging FDI in China. | | 查看全文 相关附件： 下载数据代码附录 |
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