踏脚石策略与中国企业出口增长

Stepping Stone Strategy and Export Growth of Chinese Exporters

本文以企业应对外部不确定性的策略选择为切入点,利用2000-2012年中国企业对50个主要贸易伙伴的出口数据以及企业个体特征变量,使用带有随机效应的Probit估计和广义最小二乘估计,研究了踏脚石策略对企业市场进入、出口增长以及市场退出决策的影响。研究发现:(1)企业会从现有的出口市场中学习,并将它们作为进入新市场的踏脚石;对特定市场而言,新出口企业在第三年的出口增长快于同期在位出口企业,同时,前者退出市场的可能性也更高;(2)目的国较高的经济发展水平、较近的地理位置以及较低的进口关税,不仅能够吸引更多的企业进入该市场,而且能够促进已进入企业的出口增长,同时降低企业退出该市场的可能性;(3)外部踏脚石效应对企业的市场进入具有微弱的促进作用,仅市场踏脚石能够促进企业在特定市场的出口增长。

With the deeply changing world economic structure,Chinese enterprises will face greater uncertainties when exporting.Focusing on how Chinese exporters cope with these uncertainties,this paper investigates the influence of the stepping stone strategy on the decision of market entry,export growth and market exit by using trade data of Chinese firms with the 50 principal trading partners between 2000 and 2012.The main conclusions include:(1) Exporters will learn from markets they have entered and use them as the stepping stone to reach distant countries.On a given market,the export growth of new entrants in their third year is greater than incumbent exporters,but the possibility of exiting the market is higher for them.(2) The favorable market conditions,such as high GDP,relatively short distance and low tariff of a market not only attract more enterprises to enter but also stimulate the export growth and reduce the possible exit of established exporters.(3) The external stepping stone effect has a weak positive impact on the market entry of exporters while only the local stepping stone can facilitate the export growth of firms on a specific market.