贸易便利化对外贸高质量发展的影响——基于产业高级化视角的分析

Research on the Impact of Trade Facilitation on High-Quality Development of Foreign Trade——Based on the Analysis of Industrial Upgrading

贸易便利化作为推动全球经济一体化、提升国家竞争力的重要措施,对外贸高质量发展具有显著影响。为推动贸易便利化,各经济体纷纷采取措施简化贸易流程,提高海关效率,降低交易成本。基于1999—2022年全球204个经济体的宏观面板数据,采用熵值法测算贸易便利化水平,利用中介效应模型和双重差分模型,实证分析贸易便利化对外贸高质量发展的影响。研究发现,贸易便利化能够通过降低交易成本、加快信息流通、激发产业创新等途径,显著促进外贸高质量发展,且该结论在替换被解释变量衡量指标、选择部分样本、将解释变量滞后一期、进行倾向得分匹配等后稳健;贸易便利化通过提升生态链、创新链、全球链、人才链、资金链、政策链、协同链、安全链,推动产业高级化,促进外贸高质量发展;在经贸摩擦背景下,贸易便利化对外贸高质量发展的促进作用更显著。中介效应检验表明,产业高级化在贸易便利化对外贸高质量发展的影响中发挥部分中介作用,即贸易便利化通过推动产业高级化,促进外贸高质量发展;城镇化、老龄化、发展程度、地理区域、教育程度、私营程度对贸易便利化与外贸高质量发展关系的影响具有异质性,在城镇化水平高、老龄化水平低、发展程度高、教育程度高、私营程度高的经济体,贸易便利化对外贸高质量发展的作用更大。因此,为实现外贸高质量发展,各经济体应继续推动贸易便利化,降低贸易成本,提高贸易效率;加强产业政策支持,重视技术创新,推动产业高级化;充分发挥城镇化和教育的作用,提升人力资本;提升劳动力市场灵活性,支持科技创新,缓解老龄化的负面影响;考虑地理区域和私营企业特点,制定差异化贸易和产业政策,推动区域经济均衡发展。

Trade facilitation,as a key factor in promoting global economic integration and enhancing national competitiveness,has a significant impact on the high-quality development of foreign trade.Economic entities around the world have taken measures to streamline trade processes,improve customs efficiency,promote trade efficiency,and reduce transaction costs,thereby advancing the process of trade facilitation.Based on macro panel data from 204 economies from 1999 to 2022,the degree of trade facilitation is measured using the entropy method,and mediating effects and difference-in-differences models are applied to empirically analyze the impact of trade facilitation on the high-quality development of foreign trade.The study found that trade facilitation significantly promotes the high-quality development of foreign trade through pathways such as reducing transaction costs,accelerating the flow of information,and stimulating industrial innovation,and this conclusion is still hold after robustness tests,including alternative variable tests,subsample tests,lag tests,and propensity score matching tests;trade facilitation positively improves the high-quality development of foreign trade by promoting the ecological chain,innovation chain,global chain,talent chain,capital chain,policy chain,collaborative chain,and security chain of economies;and under the background of trade friction,the role of trade facilitation in promoting the high-quality development of foreign trade is more pronounced.The mediating effect mechanism test found that:industrial upgrading plays a partial mediating role in the process of trade facilitation affecting the high-quality development of foreign trade.That is,trade facilitation promotes industrial upgrading,thereby enhancing the high-quality development of foreign trade;and factors such as urbanization,aging,development level,geographical region,education level,and private sector degree of economies have heterogeneous impacts on the relationship between trade facilitation and the high-quality development of foreign trade,and for economies with higher urbanization,lower aging,higher development and education level,and higher privatization,the impact of trade facilitation on the high-quality development of foreign trade is more significant.To realize the high-quality development of foreign trade,economies should,first,continue to promote trade facilitation,reduce trade cost,and improve trade efficiency;second,they should strengthen industrial policy support and promote industrial upgrading;third,they should give full play to the role of urbanization and education and promote human capital;fourth,they should improve the flexibility of labor market,support science and technological innovation,and alleviate the negative impact of aging;and fifth,they should formulate differentiated trade and industrial policies with the consideration of regional characteristics and private sector needs to promote the balanced development of regional economy.