价格离散对出口贸易关系稳定的影响——基于进口商搜寻视角的探析

The impact of price dispersion on the stability of export trade relations:from the perspective of importers’search

价格离散是检验市场效率的重要指标。基于进口商搜寻视角,在构建价格离散影响贸易关系稳定的理论框架基础上,采用2000—2007年中国海关数据库和中国工业企业数据库的微观数据进行实证分析,检验了产品价格离散对以"企业—产品—目的国"界定的企业现有出口贸易关系稳定性的影响。研究发现:价格离散对贸易关系的稳定性有显著的负向影响。从贸易方式来看,价格离散对加工贸易关系稳定的负面影响小于对一般贸易的影响;从企业所有制来看,价格离散对国有企业贸易关系稳定性的影响远高于外资企业和民营企业;从目的国契约执行效率来看,相比于高契约执行效率的国家,价格离散对出口低契约执行效率国家贸易关系的负向影响更大。搜寻成本是价格离散影响出口贸易关系稳定的中介变量。价格离散通过增加进口商边际搜寻成本来提高进口商搜寻的预期收益,降低现有贸易关系稳定性。因此,提升资源配置效率、市场信息效率、市场制度效率,降低价格离散度是推进我国外贸稳定增长的重要途径。

Price dispersion is an important indicator of market efficiency.Based on the importer search perspective and the theoretical framework of the impact of price dispersion on the stability of trade relations,this paper examines the effect of product price dispersion on the stability of existing export trade relations defined by"firm-product-destination country"by using the microdata from China Customs Database and China Industrial Enterprise Database from 2000 to 2007.The study finds that price dispersion has a significant negative impact on the stability of trade relations.From the perspective of trade mode,the negative impact of price dispersion on the stability of processing trade relations is smaller than the effect on general trade;from the perspective of enterprise ownership,the impact of price dispersion on the stability of trade relations of state-owned enterprises is much higher than that of foreign-owned enterprises and private enterprises;from the perspective of contract execution efficiency of destination country,the negative impact of price dispersion on the trade relations of countries with low export contract execution efficiency is more significant than that of countries with high export contract execution efficiency.Search cost is the mediating variable by which price dispersion affects the stability of the export trade relations.It shows that price dispersion increases the importers’expected search revenue and reduces the stability of the existing trade relations by increasing the importer’s marginal search cost.Therefore,promoting the efficiency of resource allocation,market information efficiency,market system efficiency,and reducing price dispersion are the crucial way to promote the stable growth of China’s foreign trade.