Countries prohibit firms’ transnational financial crime by coordinating their regulations under international organizations (IOs). Under these IOs, states threaten to prosecute firms’ foreign misconduct at home. Such threats can help conscript companies to diffuse sustainable business models abroad. This paper studies the effect of corporate criminal regulations on firms’ foreign direct investment (FDI). Critics of these policies claim they push firms’ investment away from host economies where financial crime is more likely to happen. Yet, regulations should also cut informal costs of crime and favor investment. I reconcile these opposed expectations and show they are special cases of the same argument. I claim that the effect of multilateral anti-bribery policies on FDI depends on the level of corruption of the host economy. It is null in non-corrupt countries. It is positive where corruption is moderate: here, laws provide legal leverage to refuse paying bribes and cut corruption costs. The effect is negative where corruption is endemic: here, anti-bribery laws expose firms to additional regulatory costs. I support the argument with multiple evidence. Company-level data on investment by 3871 firms between 2006 and 2011 show that regulated corporations have a \(27\%\) higher probability of investing in moderately corrupt economies than unregulated firms, which plummets to \(-52\%\) in extremely corrupt countries. A synthetic counterfactual design using country-dyadic FDI flows corroborates this finding. Results show that regulatory policies harmonized by IOs change international competition for FDI in ways that do not necessarily harm regulated firms.

各国通过协调国际组织 (IO) 的监管来禁止企业的跨国金融犯罪。根据这些指令，各国威胁要起诉国内企业的外国不当行为。此类威胁可以帮助企业在海外传播可持续的商业模式。本文研究了公司刑事法规对企业对外直接投资（FDI）的影响。这些政策的批评者声称，它们将企业的投资从更容易发生金融犯罪的东道经济体转移。然而，监管还应降低犯罪的非正式成本并有利于投资。我调和了这些相互对立的期望，并表明它们是同一论点的特例。我认为多边反贿赂政策对外国直接投资的影响取决于东道国经济的腐败程度。在非腐败国家它是无效的。在腐败程度较低的地方，这是积极的：在这里，法律提供了拒绝行贿和降低腐败成本的法律杠杆。在腐败盛行的地方，其影响是负面的：在这里，反贿赂法使企业面临额外的监管成本。我用多种证据支持这个论点。 2006 年至 2011 年间 3871 家公司的公司级投资数据显示，受监管的公司有较高的概率\(27\%\) 投资于中等规模的企业腐败的经济体比不受监管的公司更受监管，在极度腐败的国家，该比率直线下降至 \(-52\%\)。使用国家二元外国直接投资流量的综合反事实设计证实了这一发现。结果表明，国际组织协调的监管政策改变了 FDI 的国际竞争，但不一定会损害受监管的企业。