Journal of International Trade is supervised by Ministry of Education of PRC, and sponsored by University of International Business and Economics. It aims to build up the top one academic journal with an international perspective in the field of economy and trade in China, and to provide services for China’s economic progress and enterprise development. The scope covers East Asia economic cooperation, regional trade, service trade, international investment and transnational operation, and international finance. The journal is included in CSSCI.
Editor-in-Chief Lin Guijun
Deputy Editor-in-Chief Tang Bi
Editorial Board Anthony Vennables(UK), David Round(Australia), Edmund Phelps(U.S.A.), E. Kwan Choi, Francisco Rivera-Batiz(U.S.A.), Gordon Anderson(Canada), Jagdish N. Bhagwati(U.S.A.), John Whal
Our study examined the dynamic correlation between the prior investment experience of Chinese heterogeneous enterprises in the specific host countries and their subsequent OFDI mode selection and proposed relevant hypotheses. Then we tested and analyzed the data of Chinese OFDI enterprises; our sample period was 2003–2011. The study finds that the more experienced the pre-investment in the specific host country’s market, or the more investment experience of other Chinese enterprises in the same industry in the same destination country is, the more the Chinese OFDI enterprises tend to cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) ; from the perspective of firm heterogeneity, when the productivity of Chinese firm is higher, its previous investment experience in a host country market will have a higher impact on the choice of OFDI model; the host country’s political and economic environment has a significant differential adverse effect on the relations of investment experience and the selection of OFDI model; the influence of Chinese OFDI firm’s investment experience in the same country on the subsequent OFDI mode choice is stronger than that in the similar countries, while its investment experience in non-similar countries does not have a significant impact.
The interpretation of traditional macro-economic identities on trade-driven economic growth affirms the positive role of demand-driven, and its scientific nature is mainly based on the independence of net exports and economic activities such as consumption and investment. However, under the current international division of labor led by the global value chain, the nature of trade has undergone a fundamental change from the transnational flow of product value realization to the external circulation of ensuring normal global production, so that it is gradually replaced by a simple exchange. Infiltration and integration into other economic activities such as production and consumption therefore become an important intermediate medium for the interaction of various economic variables. The driving force of trade on economic growth has also been driven by traditional simple demand and has evolved into a multiplicative cyclical dynamic mechanism induced by input-output linkages in global production networks. This new mechanism breaks through the absolute level of traditional trade patterns with the help of net exports to economic growth, and emphasizes the multiplier amplification of economic growth. Based on the relevant principles of the global input-output model, this paper starts with the two-industry single-conducting model of two countries, and gradually expands it into a multi-conducting model of multiple industries in two countries and multiple industries in multiple countries. It explains the new mechanism of action of value chain trade-driven economic growth. It provides a new perspective and ideas for a deep understanding of the inherent meaning of trade for economic growth, and a new theoretical basis and measurement framework for re-examining the economic status of trade by correctly measuring the actual contribution of trade to economic growth, and refining appropriate policy measures.
This paper used the World Bank’s Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) and the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) to study the impact of services liberalization on the manufacturing participation and position in global value chains (GVCs). The empirical results indicate that: services liberalization has promoted the forward GVC participation of the manufacturing industry, and inhibited its backward participation, significantly increasing the position of manufacturing enterprises in the value chain. From the perspective of economic development, services liberalization has a greater effect on the GVC position of developing countries than that of developed countries. The openness of different service sectors has heterogeneous effects: the position promoting effect of retail, telecommunication, and professional services liberalization is more obvious, while the position promoting effect of transport services liberalization is not significant. This paper provides empirical support and policy reference for China to expand the openness of trade in services, help the manufacturing industry fully use domestic and foreign high-quality services to deeply integrate into GVCs, enhance international competitiveness, and achieve a rapid rise in the value chain position.
This article incorporated population agglomeration into an extended M-O model, demonstrating the mechanism of dynamic change of export firms’ markups from the perspective of population agglomeration. Based on theoretical analysis, an empirical research was conducted with matched data from database of Chinese Annual Survey of Industrial Firms and Customs Database. The results show that under the same conditions, population agglomeration has negative effects on the markups of export firms. Sub-sample heterogeneity regression results show that population agglomeration leads to lower markups in capital intensive firms, foreign-funded firms, general trading firms and competitive industries. The results of mediating effect model show that population agglomeration reduces the markups when the export congestion effect is greater than the economies of agglomeration. On the city-industry level, population agglomeration has a remarkable resource reallocation effect and cuts down the markups by the intensive margin and the extensive margin. The negative intra-firm effect and entry effect are main causes of an overloaded export market and deteriorative firm performance. According to the results of quasi-natural experiment of removing counties and establishing districts, quantile regression, and substitution variable regression, the conclusion of this paper has certain robustness. This paper has significant implications for optimizing urban spatial layout and promoting foreign trade competitiveness.
Based on China Industry Business Performance Database and China Customs Data, this paper has analyzed the effect of the quality of imported products on the quality of exported products and the enterprises’ export domestic value added ratio (DVAR) by means of different empirical methods including Tobit and IVTobit. The results are as follows. (1) The quality of imported products significantly promotes the export quality of the corresponding products in the context of the general trade, and we get the same conclusion for enterprises with different levels of R&D intensity and ownership. However, the results in the processing trade are complicated. For enterprises with high R&D intensity, the quality of imported products increases the quality of exported products; and for enterprises with low R&D intensity, the quality of imported products decreases the quality of exported products. (2) In the context of the general trade, it is found that the quality of imported products significantly promotes the quality of exported products, which can be verified by samples consisted of OECD countries, B&R countries (namely, the countries along the Belt and Road) and high-income countries. However, the effect is insignificant in low-income countries. In terms of the processing trade, the fact that the quality of imported products decreases the export product quality is supported by OECD countries and B&R countries. (3) With respects to the influential mechanism, we find that the quality ladder of imported products has a positive moderating effect for the quality of imported products to promote the quality of exported products in the context of both the general trade and the processing trade. The positive effect of the quality of imported products on the quality of exported products in the general trade is realized through the mediating effect of innovation, while the effect in the processing trade is uncertain. (4) The further study shows that the quality of imported products promotes enterprises’ export DVAR in the general trade, while this effect is opposite in the processing trade.
Industrial policy existed in many fields of China in various forms. Here we discussed the effect and premise of industrial policy with great significance. This paper took the leading industry support policy which was set up in the export processing zone as the exogenous impact and designed a quasi-natural experiment. After examining the impact of industrial policy on dual margins of export, we conclude that the industrial policy has a positive impact on the total export. From the perspective of the dual margins of country, the industrial policy has increased the average size of the enterprises’ exports to the existing market (intensive margin), but it has no significant influence on the development of new markets (extensive margin); from the perspective of the dual margins of production, industrial policy increases the number of types of new products (extensive margin), but it does not have obvious impact on the average export volume of existing products (intensive margin). Further discussion on the mechanism finds that the decline in export costs of enterprises and the decrease in industry entry costs are important reasons for industrial policies to promote the export and product extensive margin respectively. Study on the pre-requisite of the industrial policy’s influence on the dual margin of export shows that the comparative advantage is an important prerequisite for the industrial policy.
Based on the matched data from Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database, Customs Import and Export Database and Patent Database, this article intended to study the impact of the labor cost rising on the innovation performance of Chinese exporting enterprises, and to explore the mechanism from the perspective of import substitution via mediation model. The findings are as follows. Labor cost has positive influence on exporter’s innovation in general, but the extent of effect depends on firm type and patent type. Labor cost promotes the invention type and utility type patents, but has an insignificant effect on the design ones. Labor cost has significant positive effects on general trade exporters and mixed trade exporters, and insignificant effects on processing trade exporters, capital-intensive exporters and exporters in the West. Labor cost rising may drive exporters to accelerate innovation via capital-goods import, but the effect is not evident for design patents.
