Prof. Bifei Tian

Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China

Title：
How Digital Distance Impact China Corporations’ “Go-out”

Abstract:
Based on the definition of digital divide, this paper innovatively measures countries’ digital distance and explores the impact of digital distance on China corporations’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by using the matched data of list corporation-country-year from 2010 to 2019. In order to robustly identify the causal effect, this paper establishes several instrument variables to estimate the regression by using geographical distance, landline telephone number of year 1986, new infrastructure policy of year 2018 and heterogeneity. The result shows that countries’ digital distance can significantly increase the probability of China corporations’ OFDI by improving both national and firm’s innovation level. Further analysis shows that institutional distance, economic distance and geographical distance positively moderate the relationship between digital distance and China corporations’ OFDI. In addition, the impact of digital distance on China corporations’ OFDI is heterogeneous considering the different level of digital distance, country with different development level, and different kind of corporation. Moreover, this impact gradually decreases with time. Accordingly, this paper suggests China government to strengthen new infrastructure policy and increase digital level in order to facilitate China corporations to “Go-out”, and achieve world’s inclusive development.

Biography:
Prof. Tian Bifei obtained his Ph.D from Wuhan University in 2006, and has been teaching in the School of Business Administration of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law since that year. He has been a visiting scholar at Texas A&M University and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He has been mainly engaged in research on enterprise management and international business for more than 20 years, and has published in World Development, Applied Economics Letter, Economics E-Journal, and other SSCI and CSSCI journals for more than 60 papers. In addition, he has published 2 works, 3 textbooks, presided over 1 national social science fund project, 2 humanities and social science fund projects of the Ministry of Education, 3 Hubei social science fund projects and other provincial projects. Further, he has won the second prize once and the third prize twice of Hubei Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award, and the third prize once of Hubei Development Research Award.