Research on the impact of home country patent level on outward foreign direct investment: Empirical analysis via equal part linear regression model and Grey Computing

Abstract

From the practice of developed countries, countries with higher patent applications and PCT patent applications (such as the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, etc.) have relatively higher outward foreign direct investment, and the actual data of provinces in China also show that with the improvement of the patent level in various provinces and cities, the intensity of outward foreign direct investment in each province and city has also increased. At present, there are relatively few research data and the research method is relatively single. Therefore, collecting panel data on China’s 31 provinces from 2003 to 2016, this paper conducts an empirical analysis on the influence of patent level on outward foreign direct investment via analytical method of equal part linear regression and Grey Computing. By comparing analysis results with the model and the results with conventional linear regression model, the difference of different regression models is observed. Furthermore, the impact of China’s patent level on China’s inter-provincial outward foreign direct investment is further analyzed.