When facts fail: Experimental evidence on perceptions and preferences toward Chinese investments in Germany

Can correcting large misperceptions about foreign economic exposure change preferences over economic integration? We study this question in a high-stakes setting, Chinese direct investment in Germany, with a survey experiment embedded in the German SocioEconomic Panel (N = 2,365) and a comparative survey in China (N = 2,000). Germans overestimate Chinese FDI more than 30-fold (perceived 33% vs. actual 1%) and evaluate it far less favorably than EU or US investment, while Chinese respondents view German FDI positively. We test the effects of three randomized interventions on attitudes: a factual correction and two narrative framings. Factual information improves stated perceptions of the economic benefits of Chinese FDI by about 0.2 standard deviations, positive narratives produce smaller gains, and negative narratives leave these perceptions unchanged, consistent with already-low baseline beliefs. Yet these changes in perceptions do not translate into changes in preferences over foreign investors. In conjoint choices between hypothetical investment proposals, Chinese investors are 40 percentage points less likely to be chosen than otherwise identical EU investors, and respondents require a Chinese acquirer to save about 40% more jobs than an EU or US acquirer before viewing the offers as equivalent; both estimates remain statistically unchanged across all treatment arms. These results demonstrate that brief informational interventions cannot reshape entrenched attitudes toward investment from geopolitically distant partners, though they can improve assessments of its instrumental benefits.