Confucius Institute, Belt and Road Initiative, and Internationalization

In this paper, we study the role of Confucius Institute in supporting internationalization of Chinese enterprises. Employing a panel dataset containing 66 Belt-Road countries and 75 non Belt-Road countries from 2006 to 2017, we find that Confucius Institute has had a positive effect on Chinese CMA in general and such an effect is stronger in Belt-Road countries, especially after the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in 2013. Our results suggest that the earlier the host country joins the Belt and Road Initiative, the stronger is the interactive effect of CI and Belt and Road Initiative. Moreover, we show that Confucius Classroom, a related program also positively affects the Chinese CMA in the context of Belt and Road Initiative. These findings are robust to controlling for the endogeneity of reverse causality and sample selection bias.

Automated summary

This study finds that Confucius Institute plays a positive role in the internationalization of Chinese enterprises, especially in Belt-Road countries, and this effect is more significant after the initiation of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. The earlier a host country joins the Belt and Road Initiative, the stronger the impact of Confucius Institute on the internationalization of Chinese enterprises.