国际贸易与区域经济长期增长——基于近现代中国的研究

International Tradeand Long-Term Regional Economic Growth-A Study of Modern China

本文基于中国近现代历史经验,实证探讨了国际贸易对国内区域经济增长的长期影响。研究发现:近代出口贸易显著促进了1910—2010年区域人口长期增长。本文利用近代条约口岸的时空分布构建工具变量,并采取多种稳健性检验,上述结论保持成立。机制分析表明,出口贸易的长期影响主要来自工业集聚的外部规模经济效应与历史沉没投资的要素禀赋塑造效应。本文研究证明国际贸易的影响具有路径依赖性,揭示了中国区域经济不平衡增长的重要历史原因。

Based on the history of modern China,we explore the long-term impact of international trade on domestic regional economic growth.The empirical study reveals that export significantly promoted long-term regional population growth.The findings remain stable in instrumental variable estimation utilizing the opening time and location of treaty ports,and in several robustness tests.We also find that external economies of scale and historical sunk investment might be two important mechanisms of the long-term impacts.Path dependence in the impact of international trade is then verified and it reveals an important historical source of China's unbalanced regional economic growth.