The institutional improvement effects of China’s foreign infrastructure investment and its mechanisms: implications for the construction of the belt and road initiative

ABSTRACT

Reducing the high incidence of corruption in the field of infrastructure investment is a significant research topic. China is committed to advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a path of integrity. This paper aims to analyze the effects and mechanisms of institutional improvement induced by China’s foreign infrastructure investments. The study employs project data and survey questionnaire data from project locations. We find that China’s foreign infrastructure investments can endogenously drive the improvement of property rights systems in the surrounding areas of the projects, with the institutional improvement effects mainly occurring during the project initiation and completion phases, and these effects are long-lasting. Heterogeneity analysis shows that commercialized projects are the core driving force behind the improvement of property rights systems through China’s foreign infrastructure investments. Based on this, the paper proposes two suggestions for promoting the construction of the BRI as a path of integrity.

KEYWORDS:

• Infrastructure investment
• institutional improvement
• joint construction of the belt and road initiative

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• F1
• O1

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The geographical coding data for the Afrobarometer survey questionnaire data needs to be obtained by submitting a research plan and the initial draft of the paper to the African Weather Table Laboratory. After the laboratory reviews and assesses the research’s value and the quality of preliminary research results, they decide whether to provide researchers with supplementary geographical coding data. In this case, the research plan submitted by the author was approved, and access was granted to the sixth round of data, which had been geographically coded, for preliminary research purposes. Based on the sixth-round data, the researcher drafted an initial paper as preliminary research outcomes. Subsequently, the researcher applied to the laboratory for geographical coding data for all survey rounds. The preliminary research outcomes were approved by the laboratory, and the researcher obtained supplementary geographical coding data for the first through seventh rounds, which had already been completed.

2. A 50-kilometer commuting distance is a relatively common commuting distance in Africa (Knutsen et al. 2017). Considering that residents are primarily influenced by Chinese foreign infrastructure investment projects through employment channels, the choice of this common commuting distance is made to identify individuals affected by the projects.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Guangdong Province Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project [GD23SQYJ02].