中国出口企业的动态区位选择分析

A growing literature in the empirical international trade has been drawn attention to firm heterogeneity and dynamic exporting behavior recently due to the availability of firm-level data. Firm heterogeneity usually includes observed characteristics, e.g., size and revenue and more importantly unobserved characteristics, namely productivity. Dynamic behavior refers to the fact that firms’ exporting decision is not independent across time. Demand learning and entry costs are the two main channels provided to rationalize the state dependence in firms’ exporting behavior. ..Initiated by Roberts and Tybout (1997), they first infer the presence of the sunk entry costs from the persistence in exporting patterns of Colombian manufacturing firms. Das, Roberts and Tybout (2007) structurally quantify the sunk entry costs using the same dataset. In addition to the status persistence of exporting, there are increased focuses on the geography of trade in the dynamic exporting. Lawless (2009) investigates Irish firms’ exporting destinations and finds that firms’ productivity plays a role in the range of their exporting markets. Their involvement in individual export markets is much more dynamic than their overall status as exporters. Besides the findings about how firm heterogeneity affects market coverage, Morales, Sheu and Zahler (2014) proposes an extended gravity model to study the dynamic market entry pattern of Chilean firms. They provide the evidence that firms are more likely to export to countries that are geographically close to their previous destinations. Moreover, they also develop a dynamic discrete choice model to quantify the entry cost used to rationalize the path dependence observed in the data...Using a novel dataset of Chinese Monthly Customs Transactions, we can contribute to the literature by filling in above gaps. The unique feature of this dataset is that it allows us to follow firms’ exporting activity in detail over time and a rich information set of firms’ both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Contrary to previous paper, firm productivity is not persistent in our paper, but rather evolves exogenously over time. In addition, firm heterogeneity is captured by a second dimension- firms’ ownership, which is very Chinese specific due to the market reform initiated several decades ago. ..In this research project, we first want to identify whether exists state dependence in both exporting status and location choice for Chinese firms after controlling a rich form of firm heterogeneity. Given the pattern we find in the data, we will develop a dynamic discrete choice model to rationalize the observed pattern of Chinese firms. In addition, we can quantify the magnitude of sunk costs and channel of demand learning nested in the same model.

在国际贸易领域，由于微观企业数据的可得性，企业的异质性和决策的动态性在理论和实证分析中日益成为研究核心。异质性理论认为企业生产绿的差异导致了其出口市场参与行为的不同。出口行为的动态决策主要由于沉没成本和市场不确定性的存在。该课题所要研究的是中国企业的差异性对区位动态决策的影响。中国企业的异质性不仅仅局限于生产率这个因素，还有一个更重要的是企业的所有制结构。不同所有制的企业在跨期动态决策中有着显著不同的出口模式，主要体现在出口规模，区位的广度与跨度和路径依赖的强度。此种企业异质性分析在国际文献是不曾有过的。本课题将使用中国海关企业进出口数据，分析中国出口企业区位选择的动态特征，检验是否在时间和区位上均存在状态依赖性。进而融合沉没成本理论和贝叶斯市场需求学习理论构建一个离散区位选择模型来解释数据中所发现的动态特征，量化企业出口的跨期决策行为，最终为政策制定者在产业结构优化方面提供建议和参考。

自中国1978年实行改革开放以来，对外贸易成为拉动中国经济增长的三驾马车之一。与此同时中国政府也大力提倡出口导向型经济发展模式，积极出台各种相关政策，优化出口产业结构。在这一系列的政策鼓励与扶持之下，中国企业的数量与规模得到了前所未有的增长，其出口产品更是遍布世界200多个国家和地区。这些加总数据计算而来的指标，一方面固然给政府部门提供了制定宏观政策的依据与导向，另一方面却忽略了出口企业个体如何决策的信息，而后者正是国际贸易领域的最新研究动向所在。主流的新新贸易理论发现微观企业间的异质性差异可以解释其出口行为，从而影响宏观的产业间和国家之间的贸易结构。本课题组旨在新新贸易理论框架之下进一步拓宽企业异质性的范畴，将其分解为可观测和不可观测的量化指标，研究异质性企业连续多期的跨期出口行为是如何影响其动态区位选择以及不同企业之间的跨期决策是否可能存在系统的相互作用关系。..本研究项目的主要数据来源为中国海关企业进出口数据和中国工业企业调查数据。初步的研究结果发现，对中国企业而言，除了生产率差异，融资约束与产品质量是不可忽视的企业异质性因素。理论模型表明，企业生产率与其在低收入国家出口占比呈负相关关系，而融资约束的存在则强化了这种负相关关系。实证结果与理论推导相符，并发现企业出口产品质量是融资约束对其出口目的地选择的重要影响渠道。此外，我们采用计量经济学中最新的网络结构识别估计方法（Double Pooled Lasso Estimation）来分析异质性企业出口行为之间的系统性互动关系。我们以企业出口总额（外延边际,Extensive Margin）和增长率（内延边际，Intensive Margin）这两个指标分别估计了对称性和非对称性两种不同的网络结构。研究初步结果表明：以出口总额指标来看，中国微观企业出口决策之间存在着显著的非对称性的互动关系，而非传统理论模型假设的对称影响关系。而以出口增长率指标来看，两种网络结构均有不同程度的解释力，不存在显著的差异。对应的政策建议则是政府补贴可以有针对性，重点补助那些网络结构中具有正向带动作用的企业，而非一刀切的政策导向。