We propose a new explanation for the persistence of gravity in international investment flows based on new facts about large cross-border commercial real estate transactions. Buyers in these transactions preferentially match with counterparties from own or proximate countries; such affinity-based matching helps alleviate financial investment frictions. We set up and structurally estimate a model of capital allocation in a decentralized market with an investment friction, which delivers the price, volume, and counterparty matching patterns in the data. The model shows that if clusters of high-affinity counterparties lie along historical routes, as in the data, preferential matching can perpetuate gravity relationships.

基于大型跨境商业房地产交易的新事实，我们提出了对国际投资流动引力持续存在的新解释。这些交易中的买家优先匹配来自本国或邻近国家的交易对手；这种基于亲和力的匹配有助于缓解金融投资摩擦。我们在具有投资摩擦的去中心化市场中建立并结构性地估计了资本配置模型，该模型提供了数据中的价格、交易量和交易对手匹配模式。该模型表明，如果高亲和力交易对手集群位于历史路线上，如数据所示，优先匹配可以使重力关系永久化。