The FDI Attraction Effect of Green Supply Chain Certification: Evidence from RCEP Countries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63313/EPP.9040Keywords:
Foreign Direct Investment, Green Supply Chain Certification, Location Choice, Institution-Based View, Carbon Border Adjustment MechanismAbstract
Against the backdrop of a sluggish global economic recovery, escalating geopolitical volatility, and increasingly urgent climate governance, the flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) is undergoing profound structural reshaping. With the global green trade barriers, represented by the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), officially entering the definitive implementation and verification phase in 2026, the environmental compliance capacity of host countries has transitioned from a mere cost burden to a core novel determinant of capital flows. Grounded in the macro context of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), this paper deeply integrates the institution-based view, the "Porter Hypothesis", and institutional decoupling theory to systematically analyze the underlying logic and micro-mechanisms of how Green Supply Chain (GSC) certification influences MNEs' FDI location choices. Based on panel data from 15 member countries spanning 2010 to 2022 and constructing a two-way fixed effects model, the empirical results reveal that GSC certification, represented by ISO 14001, significantly promotes FDI inflows. This finding not only confirms that environmental compliance has transformed from a "transaction cost" into an "institutional asset" with strategic premium, but also highlights the critical signaling role of voluntary environmental standards in reducing information asymmetry in cross-border transactions and evading "greenwashing" regulatory risks. This study expands the connotation of location advantages in the classic Ownership-Location-Internalization (OLI) paradigm. It not only provides scientific location coordinates for MNEs to navigate penetrative carbon verification and optimize Asia-Pacific supply chain layouts, but also offers forward-looking empirical evidence and strategic insights for developing RCEP members to abandon formalistic investment attraction strategies and formulate substantive macro-green economic transition policies.
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