Can regional cooperation mitigate the impact of COVID ‐19 pandemic on greenfield investments? Evidence from the belt and road initiative

This paper studies the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on greenfield investments using a large panel dataset comprising 78 countries and regions at the monthly level from January 2019 to August 2021 (32 months). Particular attention is paid to whether the Belt and Road (BRI), a regional cooperation initiative, contributes to mitigating these shocks. Three indicators are used to measure greenfield investments, i.e., capital inflows, projects and employees. The lockdown measure due to the pandemic is used to conduct a difference‐in‐difference analysis. This paper finds that the pandemic significantly reduces global greenfield investments, while the BRI participants experience a lesser shock than the non‐BRI countries (regions). Robustness checks using the numbers of monthly confirmed cases and deaths also support the role of the initiative in helping the BRI participants to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on greenfield investments.