政治距离、文化差异与中国的对外贸易

Political Distance,Cultural Differences and China’s Foreign Trade

政治利益与决策如何影响经济成为近年来学者关注与争议的焦点。文章基于中国视角,选取96个国家1992~2015年度数据为样本,实证考察了双边政治距离、经贸往来与文化差异之间的互动关系,结论如下:首先,政治距离显著降低了中国与贸易伙伴国间双边贸易往来,双边文化的差异则加深了彼此的政治风险,显著提高了双边贸易对政治距离的敏感性(偏效应)。其次,上述关系在不同时期呈现出不同的特征,尤其是在危机后的经济复苏阶段,中国与伙伴国的贸易往来却独立于双边的政治距离。最后,当对所涉及的贸易产品进行细分研究时,发现主要是在食品和活动物、制成品、机械和运输设备以及杂项制品这四类产品的贸易中显著存在上述贸易损害效应。

In recent years, how political interests and decision-making affect economy has become the focus of the scholars’ attention and controversy. Based on the perspective of China, this paper uses the annual data of 96 countries from 1992 to 2015 as the samples to empirically examine the interation among bilateral political distance, trade flows and cultural differences. The conclusions are as follows. Firstly, political distance significantly reduces bilateral trade flows between China and its trading partners and bilateral cultural differences exacerbate mutual political risks and significantly increase the sensitivity of bilateral trade to political distance( partial effect). Secondly, the above relations present different characteristics in different periods, especially in the stage of economic recovery after the crisis. However,the trade between China and its partner countries is independent of bilateral political distance. Finally, while subdividing the trade products involved, it is found that the trade damage effects mentioned above only exist in the trade of four kinds of products including "food and live animals", "manufactured goods", "machinery and transport equipment" and "miscellaneous manufactured articles".