An Analysis of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative Investment Factors in Comparison with Historical Chinese ODI Trends
Open Access
Author:
Reynolds, Joshua
Area of Honors:
Economics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
James R. Tybout, Thesis Supervisor Sung Jae Jun, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
BRI Belt and Road Initiative China FDI
Abstract:
This thesis analyzes various economic, political, and cultural factors which have potential to predict the volume of Belt and Road Initiative FDI received by all countries for which the necessary data is available. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s flagship international development initiative which fulfills a wide range of important policy goals for the ruling Chinese Communist Party. This paper first considers the existing literature on FDI trends, with particular attention to Chinese-specific ODI patterns, alongside a multifaceted contextual analysis of the BRI in an effort to identify the factors of relevance in predicting BRI investment flows. Then, with all relevant data represented, linear regression models are run to first analyze the significance of selected variables in predicting BRI investment volume, and afterwards to compare these results with Chinese ODI trends before and after the launch of the BRI, as well as across construction and financial type investments separately. These results provide insight into whether the BRI can be seen as distinct from historical Chinese or global ODI patterns, and offer observational evidence for various motivations for the Belt and Road Initiative.
