制度创新如何影响我国跨境电商出口?——来自综试区设立的经验证据

How do Institutional Innovations Affect China’s Cross-border E-commerce Exports? Evidence from the Establishment of Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Area

设立跨境电商综试区是我国构建开放型经济新体制的重大举措,政府通过在综试区内推出一系列制度创新,助力地区外贸创新发展。本文基于国内领先跨境电商物流企业2016年9月至2019年8月的运单数据,首次构造了城市—行业—月度层面描述我国跨境电商出口状况的面板数据集,并以第三批跨境电商综试区的设立为准实验,运用双重差分法(DID),率先就综试区相关制度创新对地区跨境电商出口的影响进行了量化评估。实证结果表明:(1)在样本期内,综试区的设立使城市内各行业的跨境电商出口平均增长了大约21%,且在“无票免税”政策出台后,这一促进效应进一步提升;(2)上述出口促进作用在消费品、中间品、中低技术及低技术产品等行业样本中更加显著;(3)贸易分解显示,综试区的设立显著提升了地区行业出口的扩展边际和数量边际,对集约边际无明显影响,对价格边际有一定的负向影响;(4)进一步分析发现,综试区制度创新引致的出口增长与企业融资约束缓解、贸易成本降低密切相关。上述发现在考虑了样本自选择偏误、更换测量指标、排除其他政策干扰、置换检验、构造匹配样本等依然高度稳健。本文的研究结论为制度创新引致的出口红利提供了可靠的经验支撑,为进一步提高跨境电商相关改革决策的科学性、准确性提供重要参考。

The establishment of Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Area(CECPA) is a major initiative for China to establish a new system for the open economy. The government has introduced a series of institutional innovations to help regional trade develop innovatively. With the waybill data of a leading Chinese cross-border e-commerce logistics company from September 2016 to August 2019, we construct a micro-panel dataset describing the exports of China’s cross-border e-commerce at the city-industry-monthly level. Taking the third batch of CECPA as a quasi-experiment, we use a difference-in-difference(DID) method to quantify the impact of CECPA on cross-border ecommerce exports. The empirical results show that:(1) during the sample period, the establishment of CECPA increased the city-industry level cross-border e-commerce exports by around 21% on average, and this effect became stronger after the "No-ticket Exemption" policy;(2)the export-promotion effect is more significant in the exports of consumer, intermediate, medium-low-technology and low-technology goods;(3) the trade decomposition shows that the establishment of CECPA has a positive effect on the extensive margin, a negative effect on the export prices and quantity, and an ambiguous impact on the intensive margin;(4) further analysis shows CECPA alleviates the financial constraints of the cross-border e-commerce firms and reduces the trade costs, thus stimulating the regional exports. The findings are robust to sample self-selection bias, measurement errors, other policy shocks, placebo tests, matching samples, etc. The conclusions empirically support the export dividend caused by CECPA, and provide an important reference for further improving the scientificity and accuracy of cross-border e-commerce reform decisions.