区域贸易政策不确定性与企业成本加成——来自中国多产品企业的微观证据

Regional Trade Policy Uncertainty and Firms’Markup Ratio——Micro Evidence from Chinese Multi-product Firms

提升外贸企业出口定价能力是中国外贸高质量发展的重要内容。本文以中国—东盟自由贸易区建立为例,探究实施自由贸易区战略,签订自由贸易协定带来的区域贸易政策不确定性(RTPU)下降对中国多产品企业出口产品成本加成率的影响及作用机制。研究发现:RTPU下降会显著提升中国企业出口产品的成本加成率;在多产品企业内部,RTPU下降对企业核心出口产品的成本加成率的提升效应更大。作用机制体现在,RTPU下降存在不完全的成本传递效应以及产品整体质量提升效应,进而提升产品的成本加成率;RTPU下降后,企业通过缩减产品组合,生产高质量核心产品的方式优化内部资源配置,着力提升其核心产品成本加成率。此外,本文还发现RTPU下降仅对采取成本竞争策略的企业、通过一般贸易出口的产品的成本加成率具有提升效应。本文的结论为中国深化区域合作,提升外贸企业出口定价能力提供了新的依据。

Improving the export pricing ability of foreign trade firms is an important part of China’s high-quality trade development.Taking the establishment of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area as an example,this paper explores the impact of the reduction of regional trade policy uncertainty(RTPU)resulted from the signing of free trade agreements on the markup ratio of Chinese multi-product firms’exports and the mechanism of action.The results show that the reduction of RTPU significantly increases the markup ratio of Chinese firms’exports.Within multi-product firms,the reduction of RTPU has a greater positive effect on the markup ratio of core exports.The mechanism tests reveal that the reduction of RTPU increases the markup ratio by reducing the marginal cost of products and improving the overall quality of products.Another mechanism is optimizing resource allocation within firms through reducing the product mix and producing high-quality core products.In addition,we find that the reduction of RTPU only increases the markup ratio of firms adopting cost-based competition strategies and products exported through ordinary trade.Our conclusion provides new evidence for the Chinese government to deepen regional cooperation and improve the export pricing ability of foreign trade firms.