不完全契约、代理成本与国际外包水平——基于中国工业数据的实证分析

Incomplete Contracts,Agency Costs and Offshoring——Evidence from China's Industries

在国际贸易中,产品质量问题经常与外包这一组织分工形式有关,但具体原因及其影响一直缺乏深入研究。本文在Grossman and Helpman(2004)模型的基础上,结合契约不完全理论和国际贸易理论,分析跨国企业外包决策的微观机理,并基于2003—2007年中国工业数据展开经验分析。为了解决以管理费用率衡量代理成本产生的内生性问题,本文分别用工具变量法和两阶段GMM法进行了处理。研究发现,由于生产环节的难以监督和契约制度环境不完善产生的代理成本使国际外包水平显著下降,间接验证了为保证产品质量需要增大代理成本,从而影响企业外包选择的理论假说。相对其他行业而言,技术密集型行业的国际外包水平受到代理成本的影响较小,而在劳动密集型行业,代理成本对行业国际外包水平的影响较大,但影响的显著性不及技术进步和劳动力要素比较优势这两个贸易决定因素。

The quality of trade goods is closely related to the organizational form of the firm, but it has been lack of rigorous analysis in the context of international trade. On the basis of the model proposed by Grossman and Helpman（2004）, we develop a framework combining with both contract theory and trade theory, and explain how the decisions of FDI and off shoring are determined. We estimate the impact of agency costs on oft shoring using the data across 19 industries from 2003 to 2007 in China. We find that the relationship betv^een agency costs and offshoring is significantly negative when endogenous issues are considered. The effect is greater for labor intensive industries but is less significant than the other factors： technology and labor costs. Further, technology intensive industries are less sensitive to agency costs, which confirms that intermediate goods are highly dependent on the high value-added external inputs in China.