对外援助与文化产品出口:影响效应与机制分析

Foreign Aid and the Export of Cultural Goods:Effects and Mechanisms

扩大文化产品出口是贯彻实施文化“走出去”战略的重要载体。探讨对外援助对文化产品出口贸易的影响,识别其异质性特征,并探讨这种影响关系及机制具有重要意义。通过构建分析文化产品贸易决定因素及其嵌入对外援助因素的理论模型,并使用2000—2017年中国提供的援助与对受援国的文化产品出口数据进行实证分析。研究表明,对外援助可显著促进中国文化产品向受援国的出口。这种促进作用主要体现在基础设施类援助、生产部门类援助和民生项目类援助上,且上述促进效应对劳动密集型文化产品、中低收入受援国以及“一带一路”沿线受援国的表现更为明显。此外,援助的文化贸易促进效应存在非线性门槛特征,只有超过特定阈值促进作用才开始显现。进一步机制检验表明,对外援助通过经济发展效应扩大受援国的文化产品需求、削减受援国和援助国之间的可变与固定贸易成本,以及增进援受双方之间的正式与非正式亲和力三条渠道影响文化产品的出口贸易。对此,应将对外援助执行工作和文化产品贸易统筹于文化强国建设之中,持续开创社会主义文化发展的新辉煌。

Expanding the export of cultural goods is an important effort to help Chinese culture“go global”.Many studies have explored the factors that influence cultural trade from traditional economic perspectives,but few studies have focused on the impact of foreign aid,an economic diplomatic behavior between countries,on cultural trade.This paper aims to examine whether foreign aid can empower cultural trade,identify its heterogeneous characteristics,and explore the mechanism of this relationship.A theoretical model is constructed to analyze the determinants of cultural product trade through the CES utility function,and the channels through which aid affects cultural trade are explored at three levels:the demand side,the transaction side and the consumption side.We go on to conduct empirical analysis based on China's foreign aid data and China's cultural product export data to aid recipient countries from 2000 to 2017.The study shows that:First,foreign aid can significantly promote the export of Chinese cultural products to recipient countries,but this impact has a nonlinear threshold characteristic,and the promotion effect only begins to appear when the aid exceeds a certain threshold.After testing the stability through IV,adjustment change and other methods,the conclusion is still valid.Second,heterogeneity analysis shows that in terms of aid types,infrastructure aid,production sector aid and people's livelihood project aid are the main factors that promote the trade of cultural products.From the perspective of different cultural product dimensions,aid has a stronger effect on promoting the export of labor-intensive cultural products.Looking at the characteristics of the recipient countries,the promotion effect of aid on the export of cultural products is more obvious in low-and-middle-income recipient countries and recipient countries in China's Belt and Road Initiative.Third,the mechanism test shows that foreign aid affects the export of cultural products through three channels:the economic development effect expands the demand for cultural products in the recipient country,reduces the variable trade costs and fixed trade costs between the recipient country and the donor country,and increases formal and informal affinity between recipient and donor countries.This paper has the following possible interdisciplinary contributions:Firstly,it is the first attempt to incorporate foreign aid into the system of determinants of cultural exports,hence expanding the boundaries and perspectives of the study of factors influencing cultural trade.Secondly,the study on the impact of aid on trade is extended to specific trade sub-sectors with high sensitivity and trust density,such as cultural products,enriching the relevant research in the field of trade promotion aid.Thirdly,this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the impact of foreign aid on the export trade of cultural products,explains the path mechanism of aid in promoting the export of cultural products from a theoretical perspective,and proposes an affinity influence mechanism from the perspective of non-economic factors,which expands the functional theory of trade-promoting aid.This paper reveals the internal logic of foreign aid affecting the export of cultural products,provides a strong theoretical support and decision-making reference for the cultural industry sector to build a new engine of cultural trade with the help of foreign aid,and opens up a new path for promoting Chinese cultural products to go global.