Cross-border E-commerce and China's Exports during the COVID-19 Pandemic

China's exports experienced a rapid recovery after the outbreak of the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic.A primary engine was cross-border e-commerce(CBEC)trade,which bucked the downward export trend during the pandemic.By exploring the variation in the number of CBEC comprehensive pilot zones across provinces,we identified the causal impact of CBEC on exports using monthly province-product-destination data for 2019 and 2020.We found strong and robust evidence that CBEC contributed to exports during the pandemic by promoting the expansion of incumbent exports(intensive margin)rather than through the expansion of product categories and exporting partners(extensive margin).Specifically,higher pandemic risk suppressed the role of CBEC at the intensive margin while enhancing it at the extensive margin.Exports to developed countries benefited more from CBEC,both intensively and extensively.Compared with final products,a larger number of intermediate products were exported through CBEC after the outbreak of the pandemic.

How the Internet Promotes China’s Exports:A Firm-level Perspective

The development of information and communications technologyv(ICT),particularly the Internet,has reduced trade costs.However,it remains unclear whether these reduced costs are reflected in the “extensive margins”of firms'exports(which refer to the probability of firms exporting)or the “intensive margins”(which refer to the value of firms'export).To test this,we used the concepts of information cost and binary margins,an augmented trade model of firm heterogeneity,a two-stage Heckman estimation,and data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey of Chinese firms in 2012.The results revealed that reduced trade costs from the use of ICT were positively related to extensive margins but that the connection with intensive margins was not significant.The results lead to the conclusion that reduced information costs related to a firm's exporting behavior were primarily reflcted in variable trade cosis.This study offers theoretical and empirical evidence for China 3 policies towards the Internet,which are relevant for the export of manufactured goods.The government should encourage the use of ICT to enhance firms export opporunities while facing current trade policy uncerainty.