中国城市对外贸易结构:典型事实与初步解释

Foreign Trade Structure across Chinese Cities: Stylized Facts and Preliminary Interpretation

理解城市对外贸易结构的差异对理解不同城市对外竞争能力差异以及各类城市在国际分工中的地位和作用具有重要价值,然而现有研究很少从城市角度考察贸易结构问题。本文利用“中国海关进出口统计数据库”2000~2008年的数据,计算了我国地级市水平所有权、贸易方式、地理和产品4种贸易结构的相关指标,发现这些指标在城市间存在显著差异。结合“中国城市统计数据”的实证分析表明,技术水平、要素禀赋、内部地理、集聚经济和人力资本是影响城市贸易结构差异的重要因素。

Understanding the difference of foreign trade structure between cities is of great value to understand their difference in foreign competitiveness and their roles in international division. However, few theoretical and empirical literatures investigate this issue. This paper computes four trade structure indices （ownership, trading type, geography and product） of prefecture-level cities in China using data from ＂China Customs Import and Export Statistics Database＂ between 2000 and 2008 and shows that there are significant differences between them. Combined with ＂China City Statistical Database＂ , this paper shows that technology, factor endowment, internal geography, agglomeration economies and human capital are import factors forming these differences.