An empirical study of enterprise investment relationship networks in China

Enterprise investment relationships serve as a microcosm reflecting macroeconomic vitality, which is restricted and affected by geographic locations of these enterprises. The study of enterprise investment relationships and their relevance to geographic spatial factors holds significant implications for decision-making and economic planning. Scholars have conducted empirical investigations into global investment networks and venture capital networks. However, fewer studies have employed a network perspective to scrutinize corporate investment relationships, and even fewer have focused specifically on China. In this paper, we develop the Chinese Enterprise Investment Relationship Dataset and innovatively integrate complex network analysis techniques into the study of enterprise investment relationships in China, establishing different scales of geographic networks. Employing statistical methodologies, we scrutinize spatial agglomeration patterns and industry concentration trends, and reveal the scale-free characteristic of the investment networks. That is, they follow the power-law distributions at different spatial scales. Additionally, we connect the investment networks with some urban development variables, including GDP, population flow, and AQI. Finally, we examine the manifestation of urban scaling laws within the realm of enterprise investment relationships. Centered on China, this work presents an well-organized investment networks data and an example of analyzing investment relationships with complex network methods.