贸易自由化与制造业企业储蓄率上升之谜

China has experienced a rapid development of foreign trade since joined the WTO. Meanwhile the manufacturing corporate saving rate is also rising, which has an increasing contribution to the total saving rate. The study of China’s corporate saving rate is the starting point of the adjustment of national income distribution policy, and also the foundation of expanding domestic demand and transforming economic growth mode. The existing literatures explained China’s high corporate savings mainly from the aspect of population structure and financing constraints. But as the disappearing of population dividend, rising of labor cost, and continuous reforming and improving of financial system, the corporate saving rate, instead of falling, kept rising. Thus the rising of China’s corporate saving rate becomes a puzzle. By combining the high corporate savings with trade liberalization, this project attempts to identify the theoretical mechanism through which trade liberalization impact the corporate savings by building a corporate saving decision model under an open economy. And then using China’s industrial enterprise data from 1997 to 2013, custom’s import and export data from 2000 to 2013, and import tariff data, this project will empirically examine the impact and mechanism of the final good’s and intermediate good’s import liberalization on manufacturing corporate saving rate through the “unconditional distribution characteristics and parameters corresponding” method, propensity score matching method, difference in difference model, and triple difference model. Besides, this project considers the heterogeneous impact in different districts, different industries and different firms.

中国自加入WTO以来经历了对外贸易的高速发展，与此同时，制造业企业储蓄率也持续上升，对总体储蓄率的贡献与日俱增。对中国企业储蓄率的研究是调整国民收入分配政策的逻辑起点，同时又是扩大内需和转变经济增长模式的基础。现有研究主要从人口结构和融资约束两方面解释我国企业高储蓄，但随着人口红利消失、劳动力成本上升，以及金融体系改革完善，企业储蓄率不降反升。我国企业储蓄率上升成为一个待解之谜。本课题拟将贸易自由化与企业高储蓄结合在一起，通过构建开放型经济条件下的企业储蓄决策模型，识别贸易自由化影响企业储蓄的理论机制。在此基础上，运用1997-2013年中国工业企业数据、2000-2013年海关进出口数据、行业进口关税数据，采用“无条件分布特征-参数对应”分析方法、倾向得分匹配法、倍差法、三重差分法模型，实证检验最终品和中间品进口自由化对制造业企业储蓄率的影响和作用机制，并考察地区、行业、企业层面异质性。

改革开放40年来，中国依赖高储蓄、高投资和高外部需求的增长策略，成就了经济增长奇迹。我国企业储蓄率上升之谜的研究是调整国民收入分配政策的逻辑起点，剖析贸易自由化对中国企业储蓄的影响是理解企业储蓄决策的重要视角。.本项目研究工作主要分三步进行：首先，描述中国企业储蓄和贸易自由化进口竞争的特征事实。然后，基于双重差分模型，分析贸易自由化对企业储蓄的影响，并从企业投资和预防性储蓄两个视角检验作用机制。最后，结合现有结论提出相应的政策建议。.本项目研究发现，中国企业储蓄在加入WTO后大幅提升，之后一直保持在较高水平。贸易自由化显著降低了企业的现金储蓄率，即贸易自由化的投资挤压效应超过了预防性储蓄动机的作用，从而降低企业的现金储蓄。本项目采用的关键数据为1997-2013年中国工业企业数据和2000-2019年中国海关贸易数据。.本课题研究有着重要的政策启示。发达国家贸易自由化的竞争效应会提高企业现金储蓄的市场价值，出于掠夺性动机和阻碍进入战略，企业会持有较多现金资产。但是对于发展中国家而言，进口竞争挤占了本国制造业企业的投资机会，企业持有现金的动机反而减弱。