异地商会与跨区域贸易

Non-Local Chambers of Commerce and Cross-Regional Trade

本文通过构建一个扩展的克鲁格曼新贸易模型来分析异地商会如何通过降低信息成本和弱化市场分割推进两地贸易。基于中国省籍异地商会和1998-2016年中国省际行政区划铁路货物运输数据的分析结论为:异地商会使得从原籍地到当地的贸易流出提高了10%;这一结论在工具变量法、事件分析、子样本检验等一系列稳健检验中仍然成立;省际贸易增加是由异地商会形成的信息成本优势和两地市场分割的弱化引致的;相对从原籍地到当地的贸易流出,异地商会更显著促进了到其原籍地的贸易流入(13%)。此外,异地商会在目的地市场化水平较低的情境下更能促进其原籍地与当地的区域贸易,并通过"邻里溢出效应"增加邻省与当地的省际贸易。本文认为异地商会建设有利于增加省际贸易,改善中国区域发展不平衡状态,推进国内大循环。

Do formal social networks formed by non-local chambers of commerce affect regional trade and in what way?The answer to this question is of utmost importance for the construction of a new development pattern in which large amounts of domestic circulation is a fundamental pillar and dual national and international circulation are promoted in a mutualway.To obtain this,the paper first constructs an extended new trade model from Krugman(1980)in order to guide the empirical analysis,predicting that non-local chambers of commerce promote trade between the two regions by reducing information costs and weakening market segmentation.Then,based on data collected from non-local chambers of commerce in different provinces of China and the exchange of railway goods in China’s inter-provincial administrative divisions from between 1998 and 2016,the following conclusions are drawn.(1)Non-local chambers of commerce increase the outflow of trade from their home provinces to their location provinces by 10%.This conclusion remains valid after performing a series of robustness tests such as the instrumental variable method,event analysis,sub-sample test,etc.(2)The increase in inter-provincial trade is mainly due to the advantage of information costs formed by non-local chambers of commerce and the weakening of market segmentation between the two regions.(3)Further discussion also indicates that,compared to trade outflows,non-local chambers of commerce increase trade inflows more significantly(13%).Non-local chambers of commerce can further promote regional trade between their home and location provinces in the destination provinces with a lower level of marketisation,as well as increasing inter-provincial trade between neighbouring provinces and their location provinces through the"neighbourhood spillover effect".Based on the conclusions reached,this paper argues that the active promotion,support and standardisation of the construction of non-local chambers of commerce leads to increased inter-provincial trade,thereby improving unbalanced and inadequate regional development in China and promoting large amounts of domestic circulation.