Is there “productivity paradox” in Chinese producer-service enterprises' OFDI?

As an important decision of enterprise internationalization, is there a similar phenomenon of “productivity paradox” in Chinese enterprises' overseas investment? We study this issue by using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms in the producer-service industry from 2007 to 2019. According to our empirical results, there is no “productivity paradox” phenomenon in the OFDI of producer-service enterprises in China. In other words, the productivity of enterprises is positively correlated with OFDI. After using the different variable measures and adopting IV estimation, this conclusion is still robust. Our research also finds that cost reduction effect, R&D improvement effect and industrial linkage effect are the three main influencing mechanisms. By analyzing the heterogeneity of dimensions such as the nature of enterprise ownership, technology intensity, cultural distance of investment destinations, and whether they belong to the “OBOR” (One Belt, One Road), we find that productivity has a more significant effect on OFDI in SOEs, technology-intensive enterprises and enterprises whose investment destinations belong to non-OBOR, and with closer cultural proximity. This paper provides implications for Chinese enterprises on how to improve their international competitiveness through OFDI.