外交访问的贸易创造效应——中国的证据

Trade Creation Effects of Diplomatic Visits: Evidence from China

本文利用中国2002-2014年间的货物贸易和外交访问数据,基于扩展的引力模型,定量研究外交访问对出口的创造效应。主要结论如下:控制多重固定效应的实证结果表明,不同类型的外交访问对贸易的影响存在非对称性,整体上外交访问对出口贸易无显著影响,但国家总理主导的外交访问具有显著的贸易促进作用,并且影响程度与贸易伙伴的经济规模相关;在使用微观产品数据和考虑外交访问影响的持续时间后发现,国家总理主导的访问对出口在中短期内具有显著和持续的影响,而国家主席主导的访问对出口在中长期具有显著和持续的影响。

In the literature, there is littleconsensus on the role of diplomatic visits on international trade. We use extended gravity models to test the extent to which diplomatic visits affect exports, based on China＇ s exports to her trade partner countries and diplomatic visits between 2002 and 2014. The results reveal that, the relationship between export and diplomatic visits diminish after introduc- ing lagged dependent variables and high dimension fixed effects. However, exploit- ing the differences in characteristics of diplomatic visits, we find different types of diplomatic visits have asymmetric effects, especially diplomatic visitsleaded by the premier, which have the strongest positive impactson trade, and the effects vary significantly for different sizes of trade partners＇ economy. Further, we test the heterogeneity effects with a more disaggregated product level export dataset and employ windows of different lengths to determine the effect of durance of visiting. We find that diplomatic visits leaded by the premier have significant short and middle run effects, while visits leaded by the president havesignificant middle and long run effects. Our analysis supports the idea of promoting trade through enhancing diplomatic relationships.