自由贸易协定条款深化与金融科技发展

Deepening Free Trade Agreement Provisions and Fintech Development

全球迎来新一轮科技革命和产业变革,金融科技成为数字时代金融体系变革的关键驱动因素。自由贸易协定(FTA)深化通过纳入更多金融科技规则,有力促进了全球金融科技新业态发展。本文突破同质性FTA假设和定性泛化指标,在水平深度和垂直深度视角下,构建立体FTA深化异质性指标体系,全面探究FTA深化对金融科技发展的影响。研究发现,FTA静态与动态深化均对金融科技发展存在显著正向效应,金融科技条款类别数量的促进效应更强。异质性分析表明,FTA深化领域、金融科技条款类型等对金融科技发展存在显著差异化影响,覆盖政治性、经济一体化和研发合作领域的FTA呈现促进效应;金融科技条款类型下,资本流动条款、知识产权条款深化促进效应更强。机制检验显示,FTA深化通过降低数据壁垒、推动技术进步、提升基础设施水平和吸引外资流入促进金融科技发展。相比于大多数国家,中国FTA深化对金融科技发展的促进效应更强,尤其是FTA金融科技条款深化的促进效应更为显著。进一步地,在RCEP签订基础上加入CPTPP,全面构建金融科技规则的“中国范本”,有助于掌握新一轮全球金融体系变革和金融科技规则制定的主动权。

The world is in the midst of major changes not seen in a century,and the global economic landscape is undergoing profound evolution.Free trade agreements(FTAs)show a typical trend of heterogeneous deepening,and fintech is increasingly becoming a common choice for countries to enhance the level of financial services and financial competitiveness.How to realize FTA deepening,especially heterogeneous deepening of fintech provisions and rules,has become the key to the global strategy of high-standard free trade areas.Existing studies have made preliminary explorations of the heterogeneous impact of FTA deepening and the impact factors of fintech,but they still have not sought a breakthrough from the perspective of regional economic cooperation in terms of the development of the new international fintech industry.This paper more accurately assesses the heterogeneous impact of FTA deepening and fintech development,and then explores the direction of FTA deepening and boosting the change of new fintech industry.This paper uses the Deep Trade Agreements database of the World Trade Organization(WTO)to construct FTA horizontal depth and vertical depth indicators,quantitatively measures the heterogeneity of FTA deepening at different levels,and further uses the Orbis database to identify and measure the level of national fintech development.On this basis,this paper empirically tests the significant positive effect of FTA deepening on fintech development.Heterogeneity analysis shows that FTAs covering the areas of politics,economic integration and R&D cooperation present a facilitating effect,and capital flow provisions and intellectual property provisions deepening has a stronger facilitating effect.Mechanism tests show that FTA deepening promotes fintech development by lowering data barriers,promoting technological progress,upgrading infrastructure and attracting foreign capital inflows.In terms of China's FTA deepening strategy,China's FTA deepening has a stronger facilitating effect on fintech development,and China should join the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP)on the basis of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP),so as to comprehensively build a"Chinese model"of fintech rules.The results of this study show that it is necessary to actively sign and upgrade high-level FTAs,pay more attention to the depth of provisions in the WTO-X area,promote more FTAs to cover politics,deep economic integration and R&D cooperation;and emphasize the refinement of provisions in the areas of investment,capital flows,intellectual property rights,and other types of provisions.This study portrays the impact effect of FTA dynamics in an all-round way,provides a more comprehensive theoretical explanation of the heterogeneity of FTA deepening and the impact of fintech,and makes up for the limitations of qualitative homogenization indicators.Focusing on specific fintech provisions,it makes the theoretical framework more suitable for China's situation,and provides policy reference for China to take the initiative in the new round of global fintech rulemaking.