Abstract
This study examines the impact of foreign direct investment in forestry, a prominent phenomenon in China, on forestry industry structure upgrading, using comprehensive economic theory and the panel data of 27 provinces from 2003 to 2019 in China. We used fixed and moderating effect models, and regional heterogeneity tests were conducted. Our results indicate that, at the national level, foreign direct investment in forestry and labor migration promotes forestry industry structural upgrading. In addition, our results indicate that labor migration as a moderating variable weakly promotes forestry industry structural upgrading via foreign direct investment in forestry, and these effects have regional heterogeneity. Finally, different control variables also have influence on forestry industry structural upgrading, such as the number of forestry stations. Based on these empirical results, we provide an explanation and give policy implications, such as developing secondary and tertiary forestry industries, building forestry infrastructure, and improving the efficiency of forestry foreign investment utilization to promote the optimization of the forestry industry structure in China.