开发区政策与中国企业“出口-生产率悖论”

The Effect of Special Economic Zones on the Productivity Paradox of Chinese Exporters

开发区在我国改革开放进程中发挥着重要的平台和载体作用,本文重点分析开发区政策对企业出口和生产率关系的影响,既为解释我国"出口-生产率悖论"提供了新的视角,也丰富了对以开发区为代表的政府政策的实施效果评价。基于1998—2007年中国工业企业数据,研究发现,企业出口和生产率之间的关系在开发区内外呈现出显著的不同,从企业的出口选择效应来看,开发区降低了企业出口的生产率门槛,在开发区内出现了低生产率企业进入出口市场的悖论,而开发区外的样本则基本遵循了高生产率企业出口的自选择效应。此外,企业的出口学习效应在开发区内外都显著存在,但是开发区政策也对其产生了一定的负向影响,区内企业在出口后所获得的生产率提升要小于非开发区样本。通过考虑开发区的级别、采用匹配估计方法、控制开发区自身选择效应进行稳健性检验,以及对不同地区和时间、不同所有制和出口密集度的企业进行分样本估计,本文的主要结论仍然成立。

Since the special economic zones are known as the platform of reform and opening-up policy,the paper mainly investigates the effect of special economic zones on the relationship between export and productivity of Chinese firms.It both contributes to the interpretation of productivity paradox of exporters and provides more evidence for the consequences of government policies in China.Based on the firm-level data of Chinese manufacturing industry from 1998 to 2007,we find that the relationship between export and firm productivity exhibits significant difference between firms within and outside the special economic zones.As for the self-selection effect,the special economic zones have lowered the productivity threshold for exporting,leading to the paradox that less productive plants enter the export market.In contrast,only firms with higher productivity can export if lying outside the zones.On the other hand,the effect of learning-by-exporting does hold for both firms within and outside the special economic zones while the firms in special economic zones benefit less than those lying outside the zones.The conclusion passes the robustness and heterogeneity tests by ownership,region,year and export density.