Research on the Impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the Overseas Business Performance of Chinese-Listed Firms——Quasi Natural Experiment from Cities Along the Belt and Road Initiative

This paper examines how the Belt and Road Initiative influences the overseas operational performance of Chinese listed companies. Based on the panel data of Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies with overseas revenues from 2009 to 2020, this paper utilizes the DID models to conduct empirical tests. This paper examines the moderating effect of the overseas background of the executive team. It discusses the differentiation effect of the Belt and Road Initiative in the context of heterogeneous companies. The results find that the Belt and Road Initiative significantly reduces the overseas business performance of Chinese listed companies. The overseas background of the executive team can inhibit the negative impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the companies’ overseas business performance. Moreover, the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative significantly reduces the overseas business performance of large-scale companies but has no significant effect on small-scale companies. Therefore, Chinese firms should strengthen risk management and cost control, build executive teams with overseas backgrounds, and set clear performance targets to enhance the effectiveness of overseas operations.