The Potential of Promoting Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative Under the Background of Anti-globalization

Abstract

In this paper, the difference-in-difference model is used to study the impact and path of the Belt and Road Initiative on the economic development of participating countries. The result illustrates that joining the Belt and Road Initiative can significantly promoting the country's economic development and this result remains robust after adopting the placebo test and propensity score matching approach to mitigate possible endogeneity issues. In addition, the paper also conducts a subsample regression based on countries’ geographical characteristics and developing level characteristics and the result show that the landlocked countries or upper middle countries have stronger economic development after the Belt and Road Initiative, and the initiative also has a significant positive effect on the development of countries in Europe. Furthermore , the channel analysis indicates that the Belt and Road Initiative promotes the economic development of participating countries through four channels: expanding the scale of trade, providing employment opportunities, promoting the development of science and technology and service industry and manufacturing industry. This finding not only provides evidence for the positive impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on regional economy, but also provides reference bases for developed countries suffering from the problem of "anti-globalization" to join the Belt and Road Initiative.