环境管制与我国的出口产品质量升级--基于两控区政策的考察

Environmental Regulations and Upgrades of Exports Quality:Evidence from Two Control Zones Policy of China

关于环境管制与出口贸易的现有研究更多地关注于环境管制对出口量的影响,鲜有文献从出口产品质量的角度进行考察。本文运用1997-2002年中国出口海关统计数据,对我国出口产品质量进行了测算,并将两控区政策(TCZ)作为外生冲击,采用倍差法和三重倍差法,考察了环境管制对中国出口产品质量的影响。研究发现:首先,总体而言,两控区政策对我国出口产品质量的提高产生了显著的正向作用,说明环境管制有利于提高我国出口产品的国际竞争力;其次,两控区的政策效应具有明显的行业、地区和产品差异,对污染和研发密集度高、国企比重高的行业产生了负向作用,对东部地区和差异化产品部门产品质量升级产生正向影响。此外,我们还进行了更换产品品质指标、考虑外生政策冲击、更换对照组等一系列稳健性检验,结果依然稳健。

Researches on environmental regulations and trade mainly focus on their impact on export volume, and pay less attention on the quality of exports. In this paper, we use the Chinese customs export data over the 1997- 2002 period to estimate the effect of the Two Control Zones policy implemented by the Chinese government on the quality of exports with the difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences methods. We find a relative upgrade in exports quality after the policy implementation. Further, the TCZ policy has negative effect on industries with high level of pollution, R^D intensity and proportion of state-owned enterprises, whereas the effect on eastern area and differentiated products is positive. In addition, we also carry out a series of robustness tests that are replacing the product quality indicator, excluding the impact of other policies, and changing the control group, and the results are still robust.