국가 간 거리와 중국의 대외직접투자

Country Distance and Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: Focused on Sub-components of Psychic Distance

This study explores the determinants of Chinese outward foreign direct investment inflow to host country through the lens of psychic distance concept. Many previous psychic distance related studies mainly focused on the only one dimension, that is cultural distance. But this study emphasized the role of various sub-components of psychic distance dimension. Hypotheses are tested using official Chinese OFDI data collected between 2003 and 2011. Dependent variable is Chinese realized OFDI amount to host countries. Main independent variables are the absolute distance between China and host country in each of six sub-components of psychic distance dimensions. Those are linguistic, cultural , religious, industrial, educational and political distance. Tobit regression results based on panel of 145 host countries over 9 years reveal that Chinese OFDI flows to countries with larger language distance, higher cultural similiarity, smaller religious distance than China. Also, This study found Chinese OFDI be associated with high levels of industrialization in, and similar political system to, host countries.