Abstract:

As one of the world's major emerging economies, Thailand's influence in OFDI has been expanding, and its geographical distribution has become increasingly diversified, which is representative. Based on this, analyzing Thai OFDI's temporal and spatial evolution characteristics from 2009 to 2019, the stepwise regression method is used to test the impact of the four-dimensional distance of geography, economy, system and culture on the location selection of Thai OFDI, in order to provide theoretical and practical reference for optimizing the location selection of developing countries. The results show that: (1) the OFDI flow in Thailand shows a fluctuating upward trend. But the investment flow decreased significantly from 2014 to 2015 and 2019 due to domestic political turmoil, large-scale divestment of individual enterprises and other factors. (2) While maintaining a large amount of investment in traditional advantageous industries, Thailand has actively expanded its investment industry, but the overall investment structure is at a lower level. (3) With the expansion of the scale of Thailand's OFDI, its location choices around the world are more diverse, showing a trend of radiation diffusion to central and Western Asia, Africa and South America. The spatial imbalance has weakened, but the overall is still prominent. (4) Geographical distance significantly inhibits the location choice of Thai OFDI, while economic distance plays a positive role in the choice of OFDI. Different from the research results based on developed countries, Thai investors tend to host countries (regions) with large institutional distance, and cultural distance has little impact on them. In view of this, developing countries in similar situations with Thailand should fully consider the influence of distance, weaken the blocking effect of geographical distance on OFDI, and actively improve their own economic development level and political stability.

Key words: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), multidimensional distance, location selection, spatiotemporal evolution, Thailand

摘要：

作为世界主要新兴经济体之一，泰国的OFDI影响力不断扩大，区位分布日趋多元化，具有一定代表性。基于此，在分析2009—2019年泰国OFDI区位选择的时空演化特征的基础上，运用逐步回归方法检验地理、经济、制度与文化四维距离对泰国OFDI区位选择的影响，以期为优化发展中国家OFDI的区位选择提供理论与实践参考。结果表明：（1）研究期内泰国OFDI流量呈波动上升趋势，2014年、2015年及2019年因受国内政局动荡、个别企业大规模撤资行为等因素影响，投资流量显著下降。（2）泰国在保持大额投资传统优势行业的同时，积极拓宽投资的行业领域，但总体投资结构表现为较低层次。（3）随着泰国OFDI规模的扩大，其在全球范围内的区位选择更加多元，呈现向中西亚、非洲、南美洲辐射扩散的趋势，空间非均衡性有所弱化，但整体仍较突出。（4）地理距离显著抑制泰国OFDI的区位选择，而经济距离对OFDI选择起积极作用。与发达国家不同，泰国投资者倾向制度距离大的东道国（地区），而文化距离对其影响甚微。因此，泰国等发展中国家在对外投资决策中应充分考虑距离因素的影响，弱化地理距离对OFDI的阻滞作用，积极提高自身的经济发展水平及政治稳定性。

关键词: 对外直接投资, 多维距离, 区位选择, 时空演化, 泰国