中国对外贸易对青年受教育程度的异质性因果影响、内在机理及政策模拟研究

What is the impact of international trade that may have on the youths’ education level? Under different assumptions and realistic backgrounds, the literature so far, both theoretically and empirically,is generally inconclusive. This project will provide a systematical research to this question. Firstly, this project will make use of WTO shock, differences between coastal regions and inland regions, comparative advantage sectors and non-comparative advantage sectors to develop difference in difference (and triple differences) models. The project also makes use of trade cost based on Baltic Dry Index, exchange rate shock variable, economic growth shock, and geographical distance based trade cost variable in gravity model to be external instruments for trade openness and techniques such as regression discontinuity, nonparametric matching and the identification through heteroskedasticity to estimate the causal effect between international trade and education. We mainly use cross country data, Chinese province, city, county level, firm, individual level and actual survey data to quantify the above causal effects. We will use multiple measures to offer robust evidence empirically and consider the heterogeneous effect due to the dynamic change of China's trade and the variation of individual characteristics. Secondly, we will build theoretical framework such as individual choice model of education level and endogeneous skill formation model and empirical techniques to analyze the inherent mechanisms linking the causal relations between China's foreign trade and youths' education level. Thirdly, we will investigate the relevant policies through policy simulation based on both theoretical and empirical analyses.

国际贸易对年轻人的受教育程度有何影响？不同的理论假设和现实背景下得到的结论可能完全不同，本项目将对这一问题进行系统性研究。首先, 本项目将利用中国加入WTO的外部冲击以及沿海（内地）、比较优势行业等构建双（三）重差分模型, 以及通过构造波罗的海干货指数贸易成本、汇率冲击、经济增长冲击和引力模型中地理距离成本等外生工具变量和断点回归、非参数匹配、异方差识别等方法来估计我国贸易开放和教育之间的因果影响。利用跨国数据、跨省市县数据、以及多维度企业和个人层面数据和实际调查数据等对上述因果关系进行定量研究。我们将使用多种指标对贸易如何影响教育提供稳健的经验证据并考虑中国贸易的动态变化和个体特征所带来的异质性；其次, 我们将通过建立如个人教育选择模型和内生技能生成模型等理论框架和实证策略探索我国对外贸易影响年轻人受教育程度的内在机理；再次,在我们理论和实证的分析基础上，通过政策模拟进行对策研究。

针对国际贸易对年轻人的受教育程度会产生何种影响的问题，不同的理论假设和现实背景将会得到迥然不同的结论，本项目针对这一问题进行了一系列系统深入的研究。研究团队利用来源于CFPS等微观数据库的个体受教育程度、入学阶段信息等个体教育相关信息和人力资本信息，以及中国加入WTO的外部冲击、世界贸易数据和中国宏微观贸易数据，通过构造波罗的海干货指数、汇率冲击、经济增长冲击和引力模型中地理距离成本等外生工具变量，通过采用断点回归、非参数匹配、异方差识别等方法准确识别我国贸易开放和教育之间的因果影响。研究结果表明中国的出口扩张导致低水平教育成本和高水平教育回报分别呈现出相对提升的态势，因此接受低水平教育的青年平均受教育时间减少2个月，接受高水平教育的青年平均受教育时间增加2个月，并且该研究结果呈现出多方位的异质性。该研究结论和机制分析对中国来讲意义重大，因为该研究对于我国贸易开放政策和教育政策之间的搭配具有重要意义。此外，本项目研究过程中还产生了一些新的研究方法、识别技巧和关键数据等，对于今后的研究工作具有重要的方法论作用和提供有效的数据支撑。