人口老龄化促进了出口产品品质升级吗?

Can Population Aging Promote Quality Upgrading of China's Export Products?

人口老龄化使有效劳动供给减少、工资上升,产品需求层次提高,以利润最大化为目标的企业会选择生产高技术产品和品质竞争策略来适应劳动力市场和需求偏好的变动,从而实现出口产品品质升级。利用121个国家和地区对美出口HS10分位产品层面贸易数据对此作用机制进行实证检验,结果表明,人口老龄化显著促进了出口产品品质升级。进一步分组回归发现:随着国家收入水平的上升,人口老龄化的边际效应呈下降趋势;人口老龄化对刚迈入或即将迈入老龄化社会国家产品品质的提升作用高于其他国家;对低技术产品品质的提升作用高于中、高技术产品。

Population aging makes the effective labor supply reduction, wages rising, products consu- ming level increasing, enterprises whose goal is to maximize the profit will choose the production of high - tech products and quality competition strategy to adapt to the changing of labor market and consumption preference, so as to realize the export products quality upgrading. On the basis of mechanism analysis, this paper uses USA HS10 digit products data importing from 121 countries from 1995 to 2006 to make empirical test. The result finds that population aging significantly promote the quality upgrading of export products. Further test shows that the marginal impact of population aging shows a downward trend with national in- come rises, and the role of promoting products quality is higher for those countries that have just entered or will soon enter the aging society than other countries. The role is higher for low technology products than middle and high technology products. Finally, robust tests also confirm the above conclusion.