Can rising urban house prices actually limit the outward FDI by firms in a home country? A story from China

We investigate the effects of rising urban house prices on manufacturing firms’ decisions on outward foreign direct investment (outward FDI) in a home country. By utilizing the panel data of Chinese industrial enterprises in 2005–2013, our estimates suggest that, for every 210 manufacturing firms or 13 listed companies in China, one firm will forgo outward FDI when house prices double. As a result, there could have been 95 percent more manufacturing firms or 70 percent more listed firms conducting outward FDI if house prices remained unchanged during the study period. To address potential endogeneity issues, we exploit a fixed-effects instrumental variable model, a difference-in-differences strategy, and housing discontinuities at provincial borders among neighboring city/county pairs. To elucidate potential mechanisms, we employ the “Olley and Pakes” covariance to assess resource allocation efficiency and observe its negative correlation with house prices. Furthermore, we delve into the impact of house prices and resource allocation efficiency on TFP, and find that house prices and TFP are negatively correlated, while resource allocation efficiency and TFP are positively correlated. Finally, heterogeneity analyses reveal that rising house prices exert a stronger negative influence on outward FDI entry for firms that are less productive, larger, domestically-owned, more closely linked to the real estate industry, labor-intensive, and in industries with higher levels of outward FDI participation. These results underscore the fact that rising house prices could exacerbate resource misallocation, leading to a decline in enterprise TFP and subsequently reducing their outward FDI.