Financial policy competition neutrality and the efficiency of outward foreign direct investment

Outward foreign direct investment is an important way for enterprises to participate in international economic cooperation and competition and to build a global “community of interest” and “community of destiny”, and it has become a key issue of concern and research in the academic world. However, existing studies have paid less attention to the willingness or motivation mechanism of OFDI, especially the lack of in-depth research on which motivational factors can drive enterprises to implement OFDI and effectively improve its efficiency. Therefore, based on the capital level perspective, this paper empirically finds, with empirical evidence from Chinese listed multinational corporations from 2009 to 2022, that competitive financial policy neutrality significantly improves OFDI efficiency; at the same time, the capital level strengthens such a facilitating mechanism. The findings provide practical guidance for the government to pay sufficient attention to financial policy competitive neutrality and perceive the incentives of firms' outward investment. •We examine the relationship between financial policy competition neutrality and OFDI efficiency.•We find that capital level plays a mediating role in the mechanism of action.•capital level strengthen the positively promotion effect.