中间品贸易自由化如何影响企业产能利用率?

How Does Intermediate Trade Liberalization Affect Capacity Utilization?

企业产能利用率提升与产能过剩化解是中国转型升级和经济发展的重要议题。文章以中国加入WTO引致的大幅度中间品关税减免作为准自然实验,采用倍差法系统考察了中间品贸易自由化对中国产能利用率的影响及其作用机制。研究发现,中间品贸易自由化显著提高了中国企业的产能利用率。渠道检验表明,中间品关税减让能够有效提升企业生产率、激励企业创新行为和提升企业出口,这些因素共同推动了企业产能利用率的提升。进一步的异质性分析发现,中间品关税减让对从事一般贸易企业和内资企业产能利用率提升的促进效应更大。最后,文章从行业特征视角进一步探讨了中间品贸易自由化与企业产能利用率之间的关系发现,在生产异质性产品和契约密集度低的行业,中间品贸易自由化的产能利用率提升效应更大。文章的研究成果为从贸易政策调整视角提升企业产能利用率并化解制造业产能过剩提供了决策参考。

How to improve the capacity utilization of enterprises and resolve overcapacity is an important issue for China’s transformation,upgrading and economic development.This article takes the substantial intermediate input tariff reduction caused by China’s accession to the WTO as a quasi-natural experiment,and systematically investigates the effects of intermediate trade liberalization on China’s capacity utilization and its mechanism using the method of difference-in-difference.The study found that the intermediate trade liberalization has significantly increased the capacity utilization of Chinese companies.Tariff reductions on intermediate goods can effectively increase productivity,stimulate innovation,and increase exports.These factors have jointly promoted the increase in capacity utilization.The analysis of heterogeneity found that tariff concessions on intermediate goods have a greater promotional effect on general trading companies and domestic companies.In addition,from the perspective of industry characteristics,we further study and find that the intermediate trade liberalization has a stronger effect in differentiated-goods industries and industries with lower contractibility.This article provides a decision-making reference for improving enterprise capacity utilization and resolving manufacturing overcapacity from the perspective of trade policy adjustments.