One Country, Many Industries: Heterogeneity of Chinese OFDI motivations at Meso Level

This article criticizes the literature on the drivers of China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) for ignoring the meso (industry) level. The authors rectify this lacuna by proposing an “industry-based view” of FDI, which takes into account cross-industry heterogeneity and FDI motivations. The authors develop a framework to examine Chinese FDI in Europe that is cognizant of investment motivations as well as sectoral characteristics at the (meso) industry level and (micro) firm-level in home and host countries. Statistical analysis confirms that different types of Chinese FDI (in terms of motivation) are stimulated by different industry characteristics in home and host countries.

This publication originally appeared as Ping Lv, Louise Curran, Francesca Spigarelli, Elisa Barbieri, “One Country, Many Industries: Heterogeneity of Chinese OFDI Motivations at Meso Level,” China economic review, Vol.69 (October 2021), pp.1-20. Copyright remains with the original holders.