贸易便利化对沿海城市经济活力的影响研究

Impact of Trade Facilitation on Economic Vitality of Coastal Cities

基于2002—2019年中国49个地级及以上沿海城市面板数据,测算沿海城市经济活力水平和贸易便利化指数,实证分析贸易便利化对沿海城市经济活力的作用机制。研究结果表明:(1)2002年以来,沿海城市经济活力和贸易便利化水平整体稳步提升,但城际差距逐渐扩大;(2)贸易便利化能够提高沿海城市经济活力水平;(3)当创新能力超过门槛值时,贸易便利化对经济活力的促进作用将显著增强;(4)工资水平、金融规模是贸易便利化影响沿海城市经济活力的重要渠道;(5)贸易便利化对经济活力的促进作用在南方沿海城市,以及较大规模、较高行政级别和较高贸易便利化程度的沿海城市中表现更强。

Economic vitality represents a city’s economic growth ability and attractiveness to production fac-tors,which is the premise of high-quality sustainable development of the urban economy.Coastal cities play an im-portant role in China’s opening-up pattern,being a key link between the domestic and international markets,as well as an important foreign trade port and import and export base in China.With the disappearance of demographic dividend,urban economic growth tends to slow down,and the economic vitality of coastal cities is facing great chal-lenges.Therefore,improving trade facilitation is an effective means to solve the problem of low economic vitality in coastal cities.Based on the panel data of 49 prefecture-level and above coastal cities in China from 2002 to 2019,this paper measures the economic vitality and the trade facilitation index and empirically analyzes the mechanism of trade facil-itation on the economic vitality.The findings are as follows.(1)Since 2002,the economic vitality and trade facili-tation of China’s coastal cities have improved,but the inter-city gap has gradually expanded.(2)Trade facilita-tion significantly improves the economic vitality of coastal cities.(3)When the innovation capability exceeds the threshold,the promotion effect of trade facilitation on economic vitality will be significantly enhanced.(4)Wage level and financial scale are important channels for trade facilitation to affect the economic vitality of coastal cities.(5)The promotion effect of trade facilitation on economic vitality is more potent in southern coastal cities,and coastal cities with larger scale,higher level,and higher trade facilitation.Therefore,the government should make more efforts to improve trade facilitation by strengthening the construction of transportation infrastructure,improving the efficiency of ports,creating a good customs clearance environment,and promoting digital trade,so that it can fully play a role in promoting economic vitality.In addition,southern coastal cities and coastal cities with larger scale and higher administrative levels should play a demonstration role in releasing economic vitality by improving trade facilitation.The main marginal contributions of the paper are as follows.First,in terms of index design,it measures the e-conomic vitality of coastal cities in five dimensions:economic growth vitality,entrepreneurial vitality,production vitality,consumption vitality,and investment vitality.Second,it constructs the index system of trade facilitation of eastern coastal cities at the city level to investigate the mechanism of trade facilitation of coastal cities influencing e-conomic vitality,and the threshold effect of urban innovation capability.Third,to provide a feasible basis for coast-al cities to formulate economic development strategies,it discusses the differences in the impact of trade facilitation on urban economic vitality under different geographical locations,city sizes,city levels,and trade facilitation levels.The in-depth analysis deepens the understanding of the relationship between trade facilitation and economic vitality.