人民币汇率变动与出口企业研发

Exchange Rate Movements and Firms' R&D Investments

本文基于人民币汇率水平变动和波动弹性增大的背景,分析实际有效汇率变动对出口企业研发投资的影响,以及融资约束等异质性特征的重要调节作用。基于Aghion et al.(2009)的扩展理论分析认为,不利的汇率冲击会减少支撑出口企业研发投资的资金,当企业面临较大的融资约束时,出口企业研发投资的概率显著降低。本文进一步采用2008-2011年"海关"与"全国税收调查"匹配数据库,详细地度量了企业级实际有效汇率等指标,实证研究发现:有效汇率的升值和预期波动风险的增大均显著不利于出口企业研发投资,但是,融资约束越低、出口产品种类和目的地越多的企业却能更好地隔绝汇率的不利冲击,政府的扶持和研发费用所得税减免政策也起到显著的对冲作用。

This paper analyzes the effect of exchange rate movements on exporters＇ R＆D investments, using 2008 - 2011 merged firm - level data from ＂China＇ s National Tax Survey （ CNTS ） ＂ and ＂Census of Export Transactions＂. Specifically, we expand Aghion et al. （2009） model to empirically investigate exports＇ R＆D decisions and intensity. We find significant negative impacts of firm - level real exchange rate appreciation and volatility risk on both exports＇ R＆D investments probability and intensity. However, the adverse effects are proportional to exports＇ financial Constraint level, exporters with softer constraints are better able to insulate their R＆D investment from exchange rate movements. Furthermore, exporters with more government supports also document less adverse effects. Other sources of heterogeneity, such as export product variety, export destination variety and markup also matter. The results appear robust to different measures of firm - level exchange rate, subsamples, and econometric specifications.