Study On Firm Heterogeneity And China’s Export Commodities Structure

This dissertation makes some theoretical and empirical research on firm heterogeneity and China’s export commodity structure. China has become the world’s largest exporter since the year of2010. The global industrial transfer promoted the domestic manufacturing technology progress and upgrading, and improved industry productivity and competitiveness. Great changes have taken place in the structure of China’s Export Commodities during past thirty years. The export of capital intensive products and technology intensive products accounted for more than60%in the year of2011. According to the traditional international trade theory, developing countries should import capital and technology intensive products, and export natural resources or labor intensive products. Many scholars based on the traditional international trade theory, discussed China’s export commodity structure on the state and industry level. However, the traditional theory of international trade can not give us reasonable explanation about this situation. Therefore, the recent development of the research in international trade, as New-New Trade Theory with the characteristics of enterprise heterogeneity and imperfect competition and increasing returns to scale, focus on the research of firms and products, and explain the changes of international trade structure and pattern caused by enterprise level difference. Some scholars make theoretical and empirical research on trade patterns and productivity growth based on New-New Trade Theory. This dissertation based on heterogeneous firm trade model, discussed the applicability of New-New Trade Theory to China’s foreign trade, and research how firm heterogeneity factors such as enterprise scale, labor productivity, labor force quality, foreign ownership affect China’s export commodity structure.The article is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the background, research significance, the framework, the research scope, research method, and the place of innovation. The second chapter systematically reviews New-New Trade Theory, including generation, development and main viewpoint. And then reviews heterogeneous firm trade theory including heterogeneous firm static trade model and dynamic trade model. Finally, we review the theory and empirical research about China’s export commodity structure.The following part is the reality investigation. Firstly, we analysis the current situation of China’s commodities structure including macro-structure as commodities and manufactured goods, and micro-structure as elements of intensity and technology intensity. The results indicate that high-tech manufactured goods in the share of exports up from12.86%in1995to32.61%in2011, and there has been a rising trend in the proportion of Capital and technology intensive products in total exports. As traditional trade theory ignored the technical progress and the potential of comparative advantage and the transformation of comparative advantage, and research the trade structure trade statically, it can not give us reasonable explanation about current situation of China’s commodities structure. The forth chapter takes the manufacturing industry as an example, to examine the heterogeneity of Chinese firms. We choose two sample collections to contrast, one is the balance panel data of China’s listed enterprises of electric power industry from2007to2011, and the other is the balance panel data of China’s communications equipment manufacturing enterprises from2005to2009. We point out that the heterogeneity of china’s firms in the same industry is obvious by using the method of comparative analysis. And there is evident heterogeneity between the export enterprises and non-export enterprises in the same industry from proprietary rights and regional distribution. Finally, we measure and calculate dozens of industries’firm heterogeneity by using the method of Euclid Distance.The part of empirical study divided into two chapters. Firstly, we examine the applicability of Meltiz (2003) model in the context of China. Meltiz (2003) model indicates that productivity is the factor for firms to choose whether export or not. Firms with high productivity choose to export while firms with low productivity choose not to export. Using the balance panel data of China manufacturing enterprises from2005to2008, we make a descriptive Statistic analysis on the export delivery value and ATFP and other index of four typical export industries to examine whether the conclusion of Meiltz model could be used in China or not. Secondly, empirical test is carried out on the effect between heterogeneity and China’s export commodity structure. Theory model is set up from the view of enterprise profit maximization in consideration of productivity, enterprise scale, labor quality and some other factors. By using the Probit model and ROC inspection, we got the marginal effect of heterogeneity on the China’s export commodity structure. The results show that:Marginal effect of Foreign ownership on the China’s export commodity structure is the largest. Region specific effect and enterprise scale also have obvious marginal effect. Labor quality, industry specific effect and factor productivity have less marginal effect. The end of the dissertation summarized the main conclusions of the research, and points out the deficiency and the direction of further research.