汇率变动、产品再配置与行业出口质量

Exchange Rate Movements, Product Reallocation and Export Quality within Industries

本文通过构建局部均衡理论模型,分析了出口和进口汇率变化对行业出口质量升级的不同影响机制。基于中国2000—2015年海关多维度细分产品数据,采用KSW方法和BF方法测算了细分制造业的出口质量升级状况,检验了人民币汇率变动通过多种渠道对中国制造业出口质量升级的影响。研究表明:第一,汇率升值会显著促进行业出口质量升级。出口和进口汇率变化对行业出口质量升级作用相反,出口汇率变化的边际作用相对更高。第二,汇率升值主要通过影响行业内部产品重新配置(新产品净进入)促进了行业出口质量升级,汇率升值对行业出口质量升级的扩展边际和集约边际作用相反,对扩展边际质量升级的正向影响作用更大。第三,汇率变化对出口质量升级影响与行业进口中间品的比重存在显著的系统性关系,在进口中间品比重更高的行业,汇率升值更可能对出口质量升级产生促进作用。

Since China’s accession to the WTO in 2001,the real exchange rate of RMB has experienced several significant depreciation and appreciation movements.Significant shocks in the real exchange rate will inevitably lead to changes in the relative competitiveness of different manufactured products,promoting product substitution and market share adjustment within the industry,which will in turn have a significant impact on the overall competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.The remarkable changes of RMB exchange rate in the past 20 years provides a good condition for us to examine the impact of exchange rate changes on the quality upgrading of China’s manufacturing exports.Due to the rapid development of global value chains,manufacturing exports and imports are highly correlated,and most export-intensive firms in the manufacturing industry are also import-intensive(Amiti et al.,2014),changes in the industry’s export and import exchange rates can simultaneously affect the inter-product reallocation within industries,which in turn has an impact on the overall export quality upgrading of the industry.In addition,changes in exchange rates not only directly change the competitive environment faced by exported products,but also indirectly affect the competitive market environment of exported products through price pass-through and import intermediate input channels.This paper analyzed the mechanism of exchange rate change effects on export quality upgrading within industries by constructing a theoretical model.Based on two different analytical frameworks,KSW and BF,we measured and decomposed the export quality upgrading situation of Chinese manufacturing industry,and examined the overall effect of exchange rate changes on the export quality upgrading within industries and its mechanism.The measured results show that the export quality upgrading of the manufacturing industry mainly comes from the inter-product reallocation within industries(or from the extensive margin).The research findings are as follows.(1)Exchange rate appreciation significantly contributes to export quality upgrading within industries.(2)The effects of export and import exchange rate movements show exactly opposite directions,with the positive effects of export exchange rate appreciation significantly higher than the negative effects of import exchange rate appreciation.Exchange rate appreciation promotes export quality at the industry level mainly by strengthening market selection and competition.(3)There is a systematic relationship between exchange rate changes on manufacturing export quality upgrading and industry dependence on imported intermediate goods.(4)Exchange rate appreciation will lead to a decline in the relative quality of incumbent product exports within industries,but significantly promote the industry’s export quality driven by inter-product reallocation,and the quality upgrading effect driven by inter-product reallocation is significantly higher than the relative quality degradation effect within the product.Moreover,the impacts of exchange rate changes on inter-product reallocation are mainly generated by accelerating the entry of new products within industries.The findings of this paper have the following policy implications.Firstly,although exchange rate appreciation puts pressure on the export growth of enterprises in the short term,it does not significantly weaken the export competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry in the long term,but rather promotes technology upgrading of Chinese firms and product substitution within industries by strengthening the market selection effect.Secondly,exchange rate appreciation will also promote the quality upgrading of the manufacturing industry through strengthening the import of intermediate input factors,which also indicates that the deep integration into the global value chain system is still of great importance to enhance the quality of China’s manufacturing exports.Thirdly,the change in market competition environment caused by the exchange rate change drives manufacturing export quality upgrading mainly by promoting the entry of new products,but the impact on the exit of products is not significant,which also implies that the focus of China’s economic reform still needs to create a fairer business environment and truly implement the fundamental role of the market so as to drive China’s economy to the stage of high-quality development.