生产率排序、多产品出口试探与出口稳定性

Productivity Ranking,Multi-product Firms Export Trial and Export Stability

本文识别并系统研究了中国的不稳定出口关系。特征事实显示,不稳定出口关系在出口中占比高、分布广且重要性持续增长,同时出口稳定性存在生产率失序现象。理论层面,通过将经典异质性企业贸易模型拓展至不完全信息条件,本文刻画了不稳定出口关系的发生,解释了“出口关系崩溃之谜”,并引入多产品企业在不完全信息下的出口决策,从出口试探视角解释了出口稳定性的企业“组间”生产率排序和“组内”生产率失序。经验层面,基准结果显示,生产率更高的企业更有可能构建稳定出口关系,出口稳定性表现出企业组间生产率排序特征;企业生产率的提升会促使该企业产生更多的不稳定出口关系,出口稳定性表现出企业组内生产率失序特征,验证了理论命题。引入多产品出口企业行为,发现企业生产率提升抑制了核心产品相关的不稳定出口关系发生,但会促进核心目的地相关的不稳定出口关系发生。进一步研究发现,生产率提升扩大了出口范围,尤其是出口目的地数量,但不改变价值分布,仅激发了更多的出口试探,这造成了更多不稳定出口的发生。因此,多产品企业在生产率提升后的出口试探增加和出口范围扩张是解释企业生产率和出口关系稳定性之间关系的关键。本文结论意味着,实现我国出口贸易的“稳中求进”,需要鼓励有能力的企业进行出口试探并扩大出口范围,同时切实对出口关系萌芽的成长予以有力支持。

In recent years,with the surging trend of reverse globalization and the continued global prevalence of the COVID-19 pandemic,the environment of China's export has been negatively impacted in many ways.In this context,the general tone of China's economic development is seeking progress while maintaining stability;and it is emphasized that export should continue to play a supporting role in the economy.It is undoubtedly important for China's economy to seek progress while maintaining stability in export.However,the unstable export relationship accounts for a very high proportion and is widely distributed in China's export.At the same time,it is puzzling that we have not observed the sharp fluctuations in export.Is there any other secret about the“instability”reflected by this phenomenon?According to existing trade theories,we can easily summarize two basic conclusions.First,once the export relationship is established,it should be maintained for a long time.Second,the stability of export should meet the productivity ranking rule,that is,the higher the firm productivity,the longer the export relationships last.But the proportion of unstable export relationships is far greater than the theoretical possibility,and the trial export of multi-product firms brings uncertainty to the relationship between export stability and productivity,which challenges existing theories.To sum up,first,this paper uses the China Customs Statistics from 2000 to 2016 to identify and describe the unstable export relationships in China.The research results are as follows.(1)There are a large number of unstable export relationships in China's export.(2)A large number of firms have various types of export relationships.(3)The core explanation of unstable export relationships lies in the factors at firm level.(4)There is significant productivity disarranging in export stability.Second,this paper extends the classical heterogeneous firms and trade model to incomplete information,and successfully depicts the occurrence of unstable export relationships.(1)Under the single-product firm assumption,because firms with high productivity are more able to bear the loss caused by the expected failure of demand parameters,their export stability meets the productivity ranking rule.(2)Under the multi-product firm assumption,firms with higher productivity are able to maintain more export relationships and conduct trial export.However,due to the lack of historical information in trail export,it is easier to mistakenly predict demand parameters and generate negative profits to some extent,so these firms tend to exit.Third,according to empirical evidence,(1)firms with higher productivity are more likely to maintain stable export relationships,and show the characteristics of inter-group productivity ranking.Whereas,the improvement of productivity will promote firms to generate more unstable export relationships,showing the characteristics of intra-group productivity disarranging.(2)The trial export of multi-product export firms is an important reason of the coexistence of inter-group productivity ranking and intra-group productivity disarranging.The conclusion indicates that in order to seek progress while maintaining stability in export,it is necessary to encourage competent firms to carry out trial export,expand the scope of export,and effectively support the growth of the infant export relationships.The marginal contribution of this paper is reflected in the following four aspects.First,this paper identifies the unstable export relationships in China's export based on China Customs Statistics with long time series,and elaborates the distribution of export relationships of China's export firms in detail,providing basic information for subsequent relevant research.Second,by introducing incomplete information conditions,this paper effectively explains the mystery of the collapse of export relationships and reaches the same conclusion with that of existing literature without imposing any additional constraints on the behavior of firms.At the same time,this paper also explores another possibility between productivity and the stability of export relationships based on multi-product firms'trial export.It not only explains the conflict between China's reality and existing theories,but also makes the theoretical framework more applicable to the situation of large trading countries,effectively developing the classic theoretical framework.Third,this paper finds the export stability,inter-group productivity ranking,and intra-group productivity disarranging in Chinese sample firms,and explains them through the export trial of multi-product firms.This paper not only marks the external validity boundary of the conclusions of mainstream literature,but also finds more causes of unstable export relationships,for example,multi-product firms and the environment of large trading countries.Fourth,this paper provides an effective reference for the design of instrumental variables for endogenous productivity changes.