近代中国的信贷约束与出口商品质量——以茶叶贸易为例

Credit Constraints and the Quality of Export Commodities in modern China:Taking Sino-foreign Tea Trade as an Example

近年来,提高出口商品质量已成为提升中国对外贸易竞争力的迫切需要。文章从茶叶贸易中市场主体之间的关系分析入手,剖析了制约近代中国出口茶叶质量的关键力量,进而构建了一个两阶段动态博弈模型,以分析作为贸易和金融中间商的口岸茶栈对茶叶质量改进的影响。研究表明,口岸茶栈是影响近代中国出口茶叶质量的关键因素之一,但其对自身利益的追求与茶叶质量改进之间是冲突的,因而形成了对出口茶叶质量的制约作用。究其原因,最重要的是口岸茶栈与制茶号(生产者)之间难以形成长期的合作关系,进而导致制茶号只能够得到口岸茶栈的短期贷款以保证茶叶数量的供应,而难以获得长期信贷以提升出口茶叶质量。进一步地,文章对近代中国出口茶叶质量低劣的原因进行了更为全面的历史分析,发现出口茶叶质量不仅受制于制茶号改进质量的激励不足,而且受到了来自中间商与金融制度的多重信贷约束。此外,晚清政府无法提供有力的产业政策和财政政策支持也是制约因素之一。文章的结论为当下中国对外贸易"由量到质"的转型和加强供给侧改革提供了一定的启示。

In recent years,the increase in the quality of export commodities has become the urgent needs to improve the competitiveness of China＇s foreign trade.This paper starts on the analysis of the relationship among market participants in tea trade,explores the key barriers to the quality of tea export in modern China,and then builds a two-stage dynamic game model to analyze the effect of Ch＇a Chans as the trade and financial intermediaries on the tea quality improvement.It finds that Ch＇a Chans are the determinant affecting the quality of tea export in modern China,but the conflict between the private interests of Ch＇a Chans and the tea quality improvement has become one of the main obstacles.The reasons basically lie in that it is difficult to form a long-run cooperation relationship between Ch＇a Chans and tea manufacturers,thereby leading to the obtainment of only shortterm loans from Ch＇a Chans by tea manufacturers to ensure the supply of tea quantity and a lack of long-term loans to improve the quality of tea export.Furthermore,it conducts a more comprehensive historical analysis of reasons for the poor quality of Chinese tea export in modern times,and argues that the quality of tea export is subject to tea manufacturers＇ lack of incentives to improve the tea quality,and is hampered by multi credit constraints between intermediaries and financial system.In addition,a lack of the provision of powerful industry and fiscal policies in the late Qing Dynasty is also a restriction factor.The conclusions provide some enlightenment to the transformation of current China＇s foreign trade from quantity to quality and the enhancement of the supply-front reform to some extent.