民粹主义如何影响执政党的贸易政策选择——来自欧洲31个国家的经验证据

How Does Populism Affect the Ruling Party’s Trade Policy Choices? Empirical Evidence from 31 European Countries

文章基于2009~2017年欧洲31个国家的面板数据,采用双向固定效应模型来检验2008年国际金融危机以来民粹主义兴起对执政党贸易政策选择的影响。研究发现:当民粹主义的流行程度达到29%~33%时,右翼政党的贸易政策选择会发生转变,从贸易开放转向贸易保护,但当左翼政党执政时,这种贸易政策的转变趋势并不显著。就民粹主义动因的潜在影响而言,与由社会文化因素导致的右翼民粹主义相比,经济因素导致的左翼民粹主义更容易裹挟执政党,扭转其贸易政策选择。进一步研究发现,2008年国际金融危机后,民粹主义对执政党贸易政策选择的影响并不会因为一国的资本—劳动比这一禀赋条件的变化而变化,它已经成为一个独立于禀赋条件的影响因素。这对于我国研判对外贸易的政治风险具有启示意义。

By employing a panel data of 31 democratic countries in Europe from 2009 to 2017, this paper uses a two-way fixed effect model to test the impact of the rise of populism on the trade policy choice of the ruling party since the global financial crisis in 2008. We find that once the popularity of populism reaches 29% to 33%, the trade policy caused by political ideology of right-wing parties will be distorted from trade openness to protection, while it has no significant effect on the left-wing ruling parties. Compared with the popularity of right-wing populism caused by cultural factors, the prevalence of left-wing populism caused by economic shock is more likely to coerce the ruling party to make choices. Further research shows that the mechanism of populist kidnapping trade decision-making does not show heterogeneous influence caused by the change of the endowment condition of a country’s capital labor ratio, but an independent factor of the trade policy choice. The inference of this paper can provide policy enlightenment for China to reduce the political risk of foreign trade.